Code Lyoko: Foes & Friends Remastered: New War Remastered
by WindySilver
Summary: It's been some time since X.A.N.A.'s defeat. Now, a new student called Alex Starsky, enrolls at Kadic to get help from the secret protectors of the Earth: the Lyoko Warriors. So little does the group of teen warriors know how hard a war they are about to get into, when they heed to call for help and return to Lyoko to fight a new evil in the form of a human of their age...
1. Prologue

That day... That day was totally horrible. I can't even remember it well. We were so young then, and yet... yet I survived that chaos of shouting and screaming. I did get help at that, but so did so many others who were with me there. And yet... yet my family was gone. The fact that they died right away and didn't suffer should probably comfort me, but it doesn't. They are still gone.

And my best friend... his eyes were open, but they were open for too long. I remember it the clearest. His eyes didn't blink, that lifeless he was. He was already gone no matter what I did.

And I saw them. Their worn arrows and bows which had been stained by our blood...

They survived but my family didn't even though they were children like me, young children. They survived because their system protected them even though they attacked, unlike me. I was protected, but I didn't even hit anyone while they annihilated everyone they hit. They survived because they were prepared for an attack and we weren't.

So many died around me that day. So many lives were lost and what for? I don't know.

I am Alex Starsky and I must stop the events of that day from happening to anyone else ever again. No one else can stop them anymore. Only I am left. Only I can stop them but I can't do it alone. I'm too weak and they're too strong.

Will you help me? Please do!

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	2. Part 1: The Battle Cont

**/Author's note: This part's full name is: _The Battle Cont... No, It Starts Again!_ /**

A month has passed since X.A.N.A.'s destruction. The world has kept on going just like it did during the battle. However, now the lives of the Lyoko Warriors had returned to the normal state of affairs from two years ago, when they had joined together to fight. Of course, they were still a solid group, but now they were once again normal young people among normal young people. No more skipping lessons, no more monitoring the Superscanner, no more quick exits to the factory, no more strange incidents interpretable as X.A.N.A.'s attacks... Jeremy no longer stayed awake at nights at the computer but instead slept just like everyone else, and Odd and Ulrich had, upon his urging, started to study well, aided by the computer genius. The amount of work had immediately showed in the grades of them both.

Moreover, William, who still tried to catch up with others at school after being away for multiple months, had gotten to better terms with the group's boys through Odd first. The spike-haired scrawny boy had called him to the small studying circle, knowing his endeavors to catch up with the lost months, and through that he had been accepted openly into the group quite soon.

They no longer went to the factory, but leaving the Lyoko Warrior life behind did not stop them from reminiscing the best of moments. Now they did so at their eternal regular bench, laughing with pleasure at things they needed to worry never again.

"Too bad I wasn't there back then! Laughs would've hit on the spot! I mean, we did have quite a situation on Lyoko, didn't we, Aelita?" Jeremy said.

"Yes, we had," Aelita answered.

"It wasn't funny back then, although we did have other things to think about at the time!" Odd remarked. "That program of yours was quite a bad idea, Jeremy, as the consequences were these: completely crazy action and Aelita almost fell to the Digital sea!"

The events of episode 69: _Wreck Room_ were the topic. It was one of those which they had thought of merely weeks earlier, but now that X.A.N.A. was gone and William free from its clutches, they could take all the fun out of all the memories.

"Yeah, that was it. Aelita almost fell to the Digital Sea!" Ulrich said somberly.

"And what about the crazy action?" William asked, grinning. He already knew of his part in the threat of Aelita falling to the Digital Sea, but he tried to disregard it. It had not been him acting there, so he could let it be.

"It was nothing," Ulrich answered as if in passing.

"Easy for you to say!" Odd exclaimed.

"And not for you, Odd?" Yumi asked and continued with a joke, "Everyone knows that often chaos and such is your doing!"

Another outburst of laughter arose. However, the bell rang and they had to go on their lessons. Odd, Aelita, Jeremy and Ulrich had a biology lesson while Yumi and William had history.

Yet the lesson of Jeremy and the others was not the most usual of them all: a new student, Alex Starsky, had come to their class. As the class representative, Odd had to skip the next reminiscence of the group to show the school area to Alex. Due to his chagrin, he was a little absent-minded, which was why he did not immediately realize Alex's words, "This place would totally be different if X.A.N.A. had won, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Odd answered and realized only then what Alex had said and what he had said himself. "Hey, how do you know about X.A.N.A.?!"

"I've been on Lyoko for years. That's where I came here from, because I need help from you and the other Lyoko Warriors. Odd goggled at Alex, unable to believe his ears.

"Are... Are you serious?" he asked, astonished. Alex nodded.

"Then let's go find the others right away and bring this up with the whole group!" Odd exclaimed.

They sought out the other Lyoko Warriors – it did not take long as the group was at their familiar and comfortable bench – and Alex told the whole story to them all. He told about a girl fortified on Lyoko, Serafina Shadow, and her partner Alicia, a being who could change into any animal except human. They had the same objective as X.A.N.A.: conquer Earth.

"I've been fighting against them for probably pretty much all my life, losing friends and allies, and when I finally almost crushed them, they escaped to Lyoko, and of course I followed them. However, I've been the underdog for all the time because they have their own allies, my sister Lyra Darksky – who changed her name and whose choice I am personally ashamed of – and she has a similar being as Alicia with her. Its name is Dan. I managed to deal with them, but Serafina and Alicia are harder enemies because they are stronger. And in addition to that, now they both are rancorous over me getting rid of Lyra and Dan, and they are even more dangerous now. I have no hope of faring against them alone, that's why I returned here to ask for your help," Alex finished the story.

"Why don't you get other allies?" Ulrich asked.

"They would be too inexperienced and too easy to deal with for Serafina and Alicia. But you are experienced, and you cannot be crushed that easily," Alex told. "You are my only hope. I mean, where could I get anyone anymore?"

"If you've been chasing Serafina and Alicia all your life, why haven't you come to ask for our help before?" Jeremy asked. "Or anyone else's?"

"No authorities have been able to help; Serafina has always managed to get away with everything. You, on the other hand, have had enough to do with X.A.N.A. already, but now X.A.N.A. is gone thanks to you," Alex answered. "Now, you have your hands free to help me."

"If Serafina and Alicia plan to conquer Earth, we have to help Alex!" Yumi said. "We can't let things end up so that we deal with one threat but let the next one do the job of the first!"

"Exactly," Aelita said.

"True," William agreed, secretly pleased; now he would get back on Lyoko and could prove that he had learned his lesson from X.A.N.A.! He had secretly wanted to get back on Lyoko and prove his worthiness, and now a chance was coming for that!

"Yeah," Odd said. "Even if you opposed, Jeremy and Ulrich, the majority already won!"

"I wouldn't have opposed anyway!" Jeremy and Ulrich exclaimed.

Now they headed to the factory and prepared to transfer to Lyoko, everyone worried but some also delighted with this new excitement. The return to Lyoko was an exhilarating thought to them all. They would once again become heroes in the virtual world which had become familiar to them.

"Where do I virtualize you?" Jeremy asked.

"To the Ice Sector. Serafina and Alicia have a hidden base or headquarters there. I have located it quite precisely," Alex answered.

"Quite precisely?" Ulrich repeated.

"Well, what I know is that they get inside some certain iceberg while I only crash at it and the chase always ends there," Alex told and pursed his mouth.

"Well, maybe we'll get there! I mean, she mustn't have expected that the Lyoko Warriors would find out about her and turn against her right away, right?" William said.

"I don't believe you'll get in, because I presume that Serafina and Alicia still take you as a threat. Serafina has most certainly prevented your entry to her base back when you were under X.A.N.A.'s control," Alex told. "I know at least one confrontation that happened between you back then, so then you got blocked at the latest."

"Well, then you stay outside to wait for us who plunge into the unknown," Yumi noted.

Alex managed to give Jeremy the coordinates and Einstein virtualized them near the iceberg.

"I'm completely sure that this is it, because I've been here many times before when I've chased Serafina and Alicia and crashed at this very iceberg while they have disappeared inside it," Alex said. He stepped a bit aside and at that very moment some bright red item flew past him and disappeared before hitting anything. Everyone turned and saw that a little distance away, on a far smaller iceberg, there was a girl with black clothes which were a bit tattered from the sleeves, and a cape. She had a bow and a bright red arrow in her hand. To boot, her face was garnished with a sour and furious expression.

"IT'S SERAFINA!" Alex roared, took his own bow and shot an arrow towards Serafina. The girl shouted something, and, as if out of nowhere, came a strong gust which flew the arrow to the ground, far away from Serafina. The maker of the gust appeared immediately; a hawk flew towards them. Serafina jumped down from the iceberg, started to run towards the Lyoko Warriors and at the same time she shot arrows towards them frantically.

The Lyoko Warriors had to deflect and dodge arrows just as frantically as the girl shot them. The hawk flew low, then suddenly turned into an albino tiger and used the speed she had already got, making a huge jump at Alex, who dodged in horror. After dodging, he aimed his arrow at the tiger.

"AND YOU WON'T DO THAT!" Serafina roared and shot a blood-red arrow towards Alex. Odd jumped in front of him to be a human shield. However, the arrow disappeared mid-flight and returned to Serafina's hand. The girl grimaced in anger.

"Alicia, deal with them! Never mind what we promised to Hopper, he's gone just like X.A.N.A., so that won't mean much anymore!" Serafina told and, once again, shot arrows at the others with an astounding pace. Alicia jumped at Odd. Nevertheless, they barely managed to avoid being devirtualized and press Serafina and Alicia so that they were left only one choice: a charge straight through.

Alicia turned into a horse and Serafina jumped on her back. After that, they charged towards the Lyoko Warriors and the iceberg. Because the duo approached rapidly, the group dodged them automatically to avoid devirtualization by collision.

"After them!" Ulrich shouted, already taking a step towards the iceberg.

"Wait!" Jeremy exclaimed.

"What?!" the others asked, annoyed.

"You were already disadvantaged like that, so even worse must be ahead in the base, in their home field which you don't know," Jeremy answered. "You'd only get yourselves killed there."

"Well, two of us presumably won't get in, so how are we supposed to survive there?" William asked, irritable. He had gotten past the distrust his mistake had caused and thus into the group and on Lyoko, but now because of that mistake's consequences he could not get to follow the others to the next phase: the action itself. If he ever hated himself for some stupid mistake, then it was at least now when he was missing out on action!

"I've already been hacking the base and now it lets Alex and William past too. The other security systems are too complexly secured to be hacked in a few minutes like this by me, but I believe you will survive them," Jeremy told. In truth, he did not believe in the survival chances of the group at all, but he did not say it aloud. He hoped that the group's charge would stop Serafina and this battle would end short. Even though he had missed the supercomputer and Lyoko, he no longer wanted to pledge to a new fight when the old was already over.

"Fine then. ATTACK!" Alex said.

They left straight into Serafina and Alicia's base.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	3. Part 2: Unknown Danger

They ran straight into the iceberg and immediately faced a horrifying bombing of laser beams in a forest in the middle of a thunderstorm. They went forward, dodging laser beams and jumping over pitfalls, getting to the foot of the hill after a seemingly endless battle against the environment. Yumi was devirtualized right when they got out of the forest.

"Yumi!" Ulrich cried out.

"It's ok, she returned to the scanner," Jeremy's voice came, distorted. He had checked from the security camera that the Japanese girl had gotten back and not gotten stuck between Lyoko and Earth.

Serafina and Alicia had dashed inside the mountain on the hill and to the same opening had grown a thorn bush fence. From its gap, arrows rained down on the Lyoko Warriors and Alex, who went towards the mountain yet were devirtualized by Serafina one by one. As the last one, she hit Alex with a normal arrow.

The group started to ponder how they could avoid devirtualization in the middle of everything.

"I have to hack that place well, otherwise the mission will fail at each try," Jeremy remarked. He knew to have been right, unfortunately, when he had been thinking that the group could not fare in the base.

At the instant, a message from Serafina and Alicia arrived on the supercomputer:

 _If you think you can barge into our base again, you're wrong. Not gonna happen. We've blocked your access and hacking through all of this is impossible for a human, even Jeremy. Feel free to waste your time trying; we'll stop you always._

 _-Serafina and Alicia._

 _PS. Wasting time is bad, because you can't get the wasted time back, not well even with Return to the Past._

"A bluff. She's nowhere near being a computer genius, she couldn't make hacking by Jeremy, a computer wizard, difficult or impossible. If we try, we can defeat her!" Alex said. The others nodded and left back to Kadic soon. They had to rest before the next try. Serafina could not turn into an insurmountable threat overnight.

After all, X.A.N.A. had not. Therefore, a human and a strange creature could not change so radically either.

 _On the next day_

"You were right, Alex, Serafina was just bluffing. I hacked all the blocks and traps during the night, so I'd suggest that we make a re-charge today," Jeremy said.

"Can we do it right away now that it's the weekend?" Odd asked. "Or does someone need to be psyched up?"

"It's fine by me!" Aelita said. Everyone else agreed as well, and so they went to the factory after inviting Yumi to come with them. Jeremy virtualized the others to Lyoko, as always. On a certain level, they were all happy that they could be virtualized on Lyoko again. After all, it had been a big thing for them for two years.

They ran inside the iceberg once again, and nothing stopped them from going through the forest in a thunderstorm, not even pitfalls; Jeremy had indeed hacked the whole security system. They got to the foot of the hill without problems and waited for Serafina to react to their arrival.

Nothing happened, so they went towards the mountain, and when they were in front of the thorn bush fence covering its only entrance and exit, everything was still as a mouse aside from the rumble of the lightning behind them.

"Serafina and Alicia are there, but they seem unaware of your arrival there," Jeremy said.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Alex said, anxious. "This doesn't seem like them."

"It doesn't," Yumi remarked. "Let's tread carefully."

The Lyoko Warriors and Alex started to cut the bush down. In a minute, it was destroyed and they could see inside the cave: Serafina and Alicia were lying on the ground, grimacing – probably because of pain – yet unaware of their enemies' presence anyway. Perhaps Jeremy's hacking had damaged them as well. Alex went towards Serafina with his other Lyoko weapon, machete, in his hand. This was his chance. When Serafina and Alicia opened their eyes, having heard the clatter, they noticed the situation and cried out in horror. Serafina dodged Alex's attack, which had turned out clumsy because of the sudden hurry.

"Alicia! My bow!" Serafina shouted to Alicia, who fetched the bow and the quiver and flew above Serafina, dropped them to her. Then she swooped to charge towards to Lyoko Warriors, turning into the same albino tiger while flying low as on the last confrontation on Lyoko's side. Serafina and Alex started to fight alone because the Lyoko Warriors already had too much work with Alicia, who had power and speed like in a furious herd of bulls. Odd and Aelita had already been devirtualized and Ulrich and William were in trouble with their swords now that they were competing on who would defend Yumi, who was throwing her fans, better or longer. Alex, on the other hand, was faring a little better, yet not well still.

Serafina kicked Alex down. The machete flew far away from the boy's hand. The girl was about to hit her enemy, but William moved between them with his unevenly working Super Smoke, blocking the steel arrow in the girl's hand with his sword. Alicia devirtualized Ulrich as the samurai's rival disappeared from the shared defense front and jumped with claws in front towards Yumi, who could not react to the disappearance of the melee fighters in time and was devirtualized.

Only then the albino tiger stopped to observe the situation. William, armed with his heavy-ish sword, was dodging Serafina's attacks which aimed at to his unguarded sides and arms while Alex stood up and fetched his machete to return to the battle. Alicia jumped at William to give Serafina a chance to get the killing blow on Alex and finally end this battle for good, but just then Alex dashed from William's left side towards Serafina and thus got under the sword of William, who got tackled from the right side. Unlike they had meant, Alex got devirtualized, but William did not.

"No!" Alex roared and hit the scanner. "I was so close!"

William tried to recover from the sudden blow which had tossed him to his left side and knocked the air out of his virtual lungs. He felt Alicia's weight on himself.

"There he went," Serafina snorted. Alicia growled and was already raising her claws to devirtualized the black-haired boy, but Serafina interrupted her, walking towards the table, "Don't bother. We have a wonderful hostage there."

"What are you...?" William tried to ask, but a strange feeling suddenly squeezed his insides and he could not finish his question. The feeling disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, and he noticed his sword disappearing.

"William! William! Can you hear me?" Jeremy shouted.

"Yeah, I hear you," William answered, watching in disbelief as the hilt of his sword disappeared into nothingness.

"What's happening there? The supercomputer sent a weird error message about you and I can't materialize you!" Jeremy asked.

"I dunno... I felt weird for a while and then my sword disappeared," William explained.

"I tied William to the existence rules of the base and disabled his abilities here," Serafina answered. Alicia growled, pressing William back against the floor when the boy tried to get up. "Give Alex to me, so you'll get William back."

"What on earth are you doing? Let William go!" Alex exclaimed. At the same time, the other Lyoko Warriors behind him and Jeremy exchanged horrified glances. Alex had already found the time to tell them about the horrifying things Serafina had done to her prisoners, and the thought of William in the same treatment was not desirable.

"I want Alex. He's with you. You probably want William back. He's with me. A trade would work well," Serafina remarked, looking at William, eyes glowing. William, who had a straight visual contact to her, could not look away even if he had wanted to. Alicia would not let him turn his head.

"It wouldn't be a fair trade," Jeremy noted. "You'll kill Alex, but William will live."

"I can send William to you as dead, if you want fairness," Serafina remarked. William cried out in horror and Alex shouted immediately, "NO!"

"If it's not okay, think about it in peace. William is and will be here as my hostage until you pay the ramson with Alex's life," Serafina noted. "Hello and goodbye for now." She cut the connection to the lab.

"What do we do now? We have to free William!" Aelita exclaimed.

"We need to make a charge back into the base and get him out of there!" Ulrich noted emphatically.

"STOP!" Alex shouted. "Everyone quiet now!"

Yumi and Odd did not get to say what they were about to say, but they shut their mouths.

"Now, we have to think carefully what we'll do. Serafina and Alicia have William as a hostage. If we do something rash, they'll hurt him severely, even kill him at the worst. Oh God, maybe poor William is already being tortured there!" Alex said. "Serafina has acted very fast now that you joined the fight, so she most likely wants to make the most of the little time she has left."

"That's why we need to act fast!" Odd exclaimed.

"Indeed, we have to be fast, but we mustn't put our heads in the wolf's mouth. We have to make plan, know what we're doing. There is no space for mistakes when it's about the wellbeing and life of our comrade," Alex remarked.

"You can't return to Lyoko today anymore. We have a day for planning," Jeremy said. "We'd better start planning William's rescue right away."

"Right. Let's go," Alex said. They left the factory and fortified to Jeremy's room to plan and hope that it would not be too late to save William on the following day.

At the same time, Alicia had gotten up from above William and returned to the regrown thorn bush as a hawk to guard the rest of the base. Serafina had sat next to William and the Lyoko Warrior did not dare to move. That girl had a threatening, ominous demeanor, and William already knew what she liked to do to her prisoners. If he could not escape and fast, this imprisonment would become physically more agonizing than being X.A.N.A.'s prisoner had been mentally to him after he had been freed.

William was not afraid of pain, but the thought of being tortured had never occurred to him. After all, he did live in a country in which human rights forbidding such inhumane treatment were at work at least in his life. Now, outside of law and actually also Earth, he did not have the protection given by UN's Declaration of Human Rights.

He had stepped to an area where he had no rights. There was only the base's ruler's, Serafina's, mercy, or rather mercilessness.

Serafina raised her hand and William squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Against his will, his mind started to immediately create different scenarios about how the hand coming towards him would hurt him. Would Serafina hit him, or would she twist his joints broken? Or would she decide to pull his hair or choke him as a beginning?

William could not stop the choices created by his imagination, each more horrible than the other, and just as little he could stop his muscles from tensing when he felt the unfamiliar and malevolent hand's touch.

 **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/**


	4. Part 3: Trapped

"I can't get the connection back. I have no idea about William's situation. It looks like traps haven't returned at least yet," Jeremy reported from his computer. The group had dug in to his room to get the best connection to Lyoko's supercomputer outside the factory. Serafina hopefully did not have a connection to Jeremy's computer, so it would be safer in Kadic's dormitory to avoid the enemy eavesdropping. The dormitory was quiet as most of the students led a normal life, so they did not have to fear eavesdropping by bystanders.

"Can you get any info on what Serafina did to him before the connection was cut off?" Aelita asked.

"I've been looking into what the supercomputer put out alongside the error message and right after it," Jeremy answered. "His abilities and human DNA sequence code are disabled, that I know for sure. They won't be a problem to re-enable once I get to access them again. What I do not know are the base's strange code snippets that were linked to William's virtual body at the same time."

"Could those code snippets be the existence rules Serafina told she tied William to?" Yumi suggested.

"Could be," Jeremy said. "The whole place is full of very strange code. Alex, do you have any info on how she could have accomplished something like that?"

"I don't know. I suspect that she got help from someone who would've taught her these things. I can't come up with any other way," Alex told.

"But who would've helped her?" Ulrich asked.

"I dunno. Anyone who knows these things and whom Serafina could have gotten into contact with to get help." Alex shrugged.

They all remembered Serafina having mentioned her promise to Hopper. No one dared to say it aloud; it could not be that Franz Hopper would have helped their new enemy. Jeremy took up old codes Lyoko's creator had used to find differences. He did not want to see the similarities, but they were exactly what he had to look for. Everyone else looked at Einstein without saying a word.

There were similarities in the code but when Jeremy thought about, there were similarities in his own codes as well. They had all been made for Lyoko and had to comply with the coding norms of the supercomputer and its virtual world.

"We can't verify from the codes whether or not Hopper has been helping Serafina," Jeremy stated.

"It can't have been Daddy," Aelita said. "It can't have been."

"I doubt it's been him," Alex said. He did not know Hopper, but he realized he was important to the group. "I doubt Serafina has been able to fool him, he's that smart."

"Alex is right," Odd said. He, or no one else, did not want to believe Hopper having been behind Serafina's base.

"True," Ulrich agreed.

"It doesn't matter who's helped Serafina. William is the priority," Alex noted. "Let's continue from what we know but haven't marked to the map."

Even Ulrich, who had accepted William back to the group but still did not feel excited about the boy's presence near Yumi, admitted that Alex was right. William had to be gotten back as soon as possible and hopefully in a state which didn't need to be explained to anyone.

William felt Serafina's hand on his upper arm. It felt suspiciously like stroking, but William knew it to be a hoax. The girl either searched for a suitable or sensitive spot to exploit in her torture or tried to lull him into a false sense of safety before torture.

William knew he would not be fooled even though his muscles already started to ache from the tension and his breathing was shallow and fitful. He had felt humane fear during his life, but this fear was stronger. It was no wonder, though, as he knew how great a danger he was in compared to his more mundane fear, like spiders.

"Listen, you can relax your body before your musculature gets completely stiff," Serafina said with a strangely calm and soft voice. William dared to open his eyes and look at the girl. Her expression was friendly. It had to be a trap. William shook his head but did not say anything.

"You don't believe me? Well okay, tense your body then until your muscles start to cramp for many hours and you get dizzy from that breathing rhythm," Serafina noted, shrugging. "It's your fault, after all."

William looked warily at the girl and her hand which still wandered gently and lightly in a calm pace up and down his upper arm. Admittedly, his muscles were protesting his reaction to the touch at this point, but would it be worth it for him to relax even an iota?

Opening his eyes freed his brains to react to his shallow breathing. William was already feeling dizzy, so he closed his eyes again and dared to relax his shoulders. The rocky ground was cold but it offered a bearing against which he could put his head and lessen his dizziness.

At some point, William realized his body had relaxed completely. Serafina's hand had moved from his upper arm to his shoulder but the nature or feel of the touch had not changed. The horror returned to his mind, surging; had he fallen asleep?!

Serafina reacted to his suddenly more frequent breathing and tensing of his shoulders by saying calmly, "You can still take it easy. I'm not planning to do you any harm."

"Oh really, you're not?" William hissed and looked at the girl, suspicious, while opening his eyes. "I don't think so!"

"Well you sure are trustful," Serafina scoffed. William noticed he had tensed himself again when the girl's changed tone reached his brains, and he feared he had gone too far. Now it would probably start to hurt.

"Why don't you just sit up? It doesn't matter if you want to lie on the ground, but with that reacting you'd probably like to have a stronger position," Serafina noted, now friendlier. William observed the girl's face, trying to see something that would give away that offer being a trap, but he saw nothing like that. Therefore, he tried to carefully reach for the ground to raise himself to a sitting position.

Serafina put her right hand to William's left shoulder and supported him. Or the girl just took herself more of her hostage's personal space and got more good chances to do harm. William moved his arms to in front of himself to somehow protect his body even though he knew that at this distance he could not do anything to react to injuring fast enough. It was a subconscious thought and it did not feel like a bad one.

The flash of a lightning striking nearby made William startle, which left the Lyoko Warrior's defenseless for a while. However, Serafina did not strike to an open spot but waited, calm and unsurprised by the lightning. After having recovered from the surprise, William, unsure, looked at the girl in front of him who had a subtle advantage which was clear to them both. What would she do to him?

Why had she not done anything to him already?

"Y'know, I've had terribly many chances to make you scream in agony, but I haven't used any of them," Serafina remarked. "Judging from you, Alex probably has already come up with blaming me for some of ghastly fates of humans he's caused, but could I get even a bit of trust? After all, I do trust all the time in that you won't hit me or otherwise assault me."

"I'm one against two," William blurted, glancing at Alicia. "I don't know why you haven't already hurt me, but there's something fishy about it. You're trying to get me into a trap by convincing me that you don't want to do me harm."

Serafina looked at him, pitying. "You sure have swallowed Alex's stuff. But on the other hand, you already are at my mercy, so why not try to trust me even a little bit?" She took her hands off William's shoulders. "If it makes you feel any better, then no physical contact. Let's just talk."

"What would we talk about?" William asked, suspicious.

"Whatever you want to talk about. It doesn't really matter for me," Serafina noted. "I don't know much about you, so I dunno what topic could interest you."

"Well what do you know?" William asked, not trusting the girl even for a moment even though her new distance actually did make him feel better for real.

"You got possessed by X.A.N.A. for multiple months soon after you'd joined the Lyoko Warriors, until you were freed. Then you returned to Lyoko with the others after the supercomputer was shut down when Alex got from here to Earth to ask for your help. And now we're right here," Serafina told.

"Not very inclusive," William remarked dryly.

"Well, I haven't been following your life much when I've already had one guy to stalk," Serafina scoffed. "How did that moron even survive through the time you were under X.A.N.A.'s possession? I can't get it. I almost lost my life, but that guy just tramped across the lands as if he'd already own the whole place."

William frowned but then relaxed his forehead. At some point, he noticed that he had talked somewhat about his life and time before and after he had joined the Lyoko Warriors. Serafina was genuinely interested in what he had to tell, and she also told about herself. However, many things conflicted with Alex's story, so William did listen to it with interest but was very critical towards all the information.

Admittedly, he still thought that it was nice that someone was interested even though it could be merely an act. Yumi had become very cold and distant towards William, and her behavior ever since he had been freed from X.A.N.A.'s possession had hurt him, even though William did not willingly show it outwards anymore. Even though the Japanese girl had accepted him to the group, she still did not seem like much of a friend other than nominally anymore.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	5. Part 4: The Rescue Plan

When William woke up to a beeping in the next morning, he found himself with his head on a pillow and a warm blanket wrapped around him. He had no clue about how he had ended up there. As the last thing, he remembered tiredness and sitting opposite to Serafina. When William reminisced more precisely, he recalled his captor encouraging him to sleep. Serafina had claimed that she still would not harm him even though he would be helpless while sleeping. William did remember declining and trying to stay awake, but at some point sleep had won out his willpower.

Actually, this might have been the first time in a while that he woke up without a feeling of having seen nightmares about being Xanafied. They had bothered him quite often ever since he had been freed from the AI's possession. And admittedly he did feel quite comfortable now; no pain but warmth. Apparently, Serafina had kept her word about not harming him and had even gone further by making him feel comfortable. Now, if ever, there would be the place for a trap, that William knew as he opened his eyes to see what the view would be after his sleep.

Serafina and Alicia were already wide awake. The hawk observed the crystal ball and its strange interface while Serafina sat next to William, watching him serenely.

"Why are you looking at me?" William asked a bit too quickly, sitting up at the same time.

"Just looking." Serafina shrugged. "There's rarely anything special or unusual to look at here." She was quiet for a short moment. "You looked so innocent while you were sleeping."

William opened his mouth, indignant, but the girl already continued, "But then I realized that you _are_ innocent. First X.A.N.A.'s prisoner just because of one wretched mistake, now part of the new battle. On Alex's side, yes, but you haven't hurt or killed anything while on his side. I hope you won't end up there either."

William could not say anything to that. The girl's sincere, compassionate and friendly tone confused him; why did Serafina treat him so well if she had been terribly brutal to her hostages before him? What did she even plan?

The worst in all of it was that William did not know what to think altogether.

Jeremy pressed Enter. "Go quickly. Bring William back."

"Yes, Einstein," Alex said, determined. "We'll bring William back, I promise you."

"Alive, please." Jeremy's voice was tense. He did not even want to touch the vocal synthesizer or contemplate if William's parents were already worrying about their son's new disappearance. There was far too little time from the last time.

Five Lyoko Warriors on Lyoko's side entered Serafina's base, and soon they already ran past the neutralized traps. They all hoped that William would be all right.

As they ran towards the mountain, they prayed that the silence was a good thing.

Serafina looked through the gap in the thorn bush fence. The Lyoko Warriors were there now.

"Let's go," she said. Alicia flew to her shoulder and the girl took the crystal ball after pressing the final button on it. A strange feeling took over William and wrenched him so much that his legs collapsed. Now what he had feared would finally happen. The torture would begin.

"What will you...?" he asked, frightened; he had no idea about what was going on. Serafina ran past him. "Hey!"

"William!" Aelita shouted. William turned to look at the thorn bush fence. He could see Aelita and some others behind it.

"Aelita!" William exclaimed, elated and relieved. Then he remembered Serafina and Alicia and turned just in time to see them disappear through the back wall of the mountain.

"Serafina and Alicia left the base!" Jeremy exclaimed.

"Let them go! We have to get William out of here! William, do you hear me?" Alex shouted.

"I do!" William answered and walked towards the thorn bush.

"Stay away, we'll break this bush down!" Ulrich said. At once, two katanas and one machete cut the thorn bush like a knife through butter. Only in a few seconds the bush had disappeared, but at the same moment William realized that something else was disappearing too.

"Are you okay?" Yumi asked, worried.

"Yeah, I'm okay," William answered.

"Hey, hey! Can you hear me?" Jeremy shouted, his voice crackling.

"What now, Jeremy?" Odd asked.

"William's state returned to normal at least partly and there's some sort of a self-destruction going on in the base! Get out of ther-" the computer genius's voice was cut off too soon.

"How can we get out of here?" Alex asked. "And how did Serafina and Alicia get out?"

"They ran through the back wall of the mountain," William told.

"Through there, then," Ulrich said.

"No, they're there too. We'd run into a trap," Yumi said and looked where they had come from. The base was already disappearing there. "Although, we can't go back either."

Before the Lyoko Warriors had the time to go to the same direction as Serafina, the ground disappeared from under their feet as golden dust, when they all fell into the whiteness full of golden dust, screaming.

The Lyoko Warriors fell out of the iceberg and fell either on their backs or stomachs to the surface of the Ice Sector. Only Odd managed to fall on his feet, yet he still flew to on his stomach due to the momentum. William groaned as he stood up.

"You all lost half of your life points! Are you ok?" Jeremy asked.

"Alive," William sighed. Falling on his back had hurt but he could already get back up on his feet. He felt himself stagger, but someone's hands met him from the back and helped him back to balance. When William turned to thank his helper, he saw that it was Alex.

"Thanks," he thanked, surprised.

"No problem," Alex said and smiled briefly before his expression turned grave. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," William answered. "At least I feel like it."

"You do seem to be in a surprisingly good state," Odd remarked. Aelita nodded and stated, "We feared for the worst."

"So did I," William noted. "I've never even thought that I'd ever end up becoming a target of torture."

"I doubt any of us have. The nearest tower is twenty degrees to the north. Go there so I can scan William just in case," Jeremy said.

"Roger. Let's go then!" Alex said. Under his lead, the group turned their backs on the iceberg and left towards the tower.

They did not know that Serafina and Alicia looked at them from afar.

"Good luck, William," Serafina said. Then she turned her back on the iceberg and left with Alicia on her shoulder to search for a new place for her base.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	6. Part 5: Free

The scenery on the Ice Sector was stunning. William could not help marveling the views and the fact that the ice did not feel cold at all against his hands. He had not had time to look at the scenery during his previous trips, and Sector Five had not become familiar either. The enthusiasm which had been pushed aside by the bad incidents was now returning, and gradually he started to feel the same as he had felt on the day he had been virtualized to Lyoko for the first time. The old enthusiasm, which now felt fresher than the months that had passed since the last time, returned as a powerful flee and he could not help showing it.

To his joy, he noticed that no one minded it. They were extremely relieved that their comrade was fine and himself. If they could get William back to Earth now, no one would have to explain the case to any outsider.

As you might have guessed, the tower was just as spectacular in William's eyes. Odd had already caught the enthusiasm and joined it, telling many stories about the past battle without underrating his own part in them. William listened to them with great interest and tried to learn from them.

"Jeremy, do you see any monsters at the tower?" Yumi asked.

"No," Jeremy answered. "X.A.N.A. is gone, Yumi, remember that."

"Serafina could've stolen monsters from it and try to stop us with them now," Alex remarked.

"I think she would have already tried to stop us from getting this far," Ulrich noted.

"Not necessarily. Here on Lyoko she doesn't have a vantage. In fact, where is she? Where did she go?" Alex asked.

"She went to the opposite direction and disappeared from the map. She probably left to look for a new place for her base," Jeremy noted.

"So she's hiding somewhere. Good," William said. He did not want to face the girl and her partner again soon.

"Not good," Alex corrected. "If we don't know where she is, she can plot against us freely without us disturbing her."

"Right," William said, understanding Alex's way of thinking. "Rats."

"I'll try to locate her and Alicia again. They can't have gotten far," Jeremy announced and concentrated on searching for the enemy on the Holomap.

While talking, the group had gotten to the front of the tower. It had seemed far smaller from afar, so William was surprised by how large it actually was compared to him.

"Follow me. I'll help with the digital analysis here," Aelita told William.

"Roger," William replied. He followed the pink-haired girl into the tower, certain that this time he would do exactly what he was told. Nothing would go wrong because of his stupidity now.

The tower had been spectacular on the outside, but on the inside it truly was spectacular. Panels all across sci-fi-looking translucent blue walls and the strange platform on which they were.

"Wow," William breathed, looking around himself. "This is a totally awesome place!" He felt a sting in his heart, knowing what he had missed out on. Aelita had already gone closer to the center of the platform, making the rings on the platform glow white, and opened a lighter blue, transparent user interface on which there were peculiar codes and windows.

"Go to the very center," she instructed, pointing at the light circle in the middle of the platform. William nodded and walked to the pointed spot, still unable to believe his eyes. This truly was, as he had said months ago in Sector Five, ten thousand times better than Galactic Battle. Lyoko was something so much better than any videogame he knew, and it was a completely different thing. He was there himself, acting with his own body and not just controlling a separate avatar with a controller or keyboard on the safer side of the screen and the computer running the game world.

"Jeremy, are you ready for the analysis on your end?" Aelita asked.

"I am. Starting the scan," Jeremy answered and pressed Enter. William found himself rising to the air and cried out in surprise. He did not actually feel anything, but he could see some strange light which went up and down in front of him. Aelita observed him and the screen in turns with a neutral expression on her face, and William could not see any sign about whether or not there was something still wrong with him from the screen's strange lines.

Suddenly, the light stopped and faded away. William felt himself landing back to the surface of the platform in a slow page until he did feel the supporting surface under his feet. Aelita looked at the screen now.

"I don't see anything strange anymore. The weird code snippets are gone," Jeremy stated. "Logically, William should be able to use his Lyoko powers as usual again and I should be able to materialize him."  
"Shall we try?" William suggested. Aelita looked at him and William shrugged. "What else could we do to find out if this works logically?"

"Go ahead," Jeremy gave the permission.

William concentrated on his sword to get it to his hand. The black smoke formed immediately and settled into the form of the sword. The hilt and the blade materialized without problems and William felt the weight of his sword in his hand right away. Through his concentration, he did not notice Aelita who had eyed the black smoke, subconsciously preparing herself. Quite a short time had passed since William's Xanafication and the numerous encounters with that smoke had not yet lost their freshness. However, Aelita did not voice her nervousness; she did not want to worry anyone nor make William feel insecure about the powers that had been left to him from the time under X.A.N.A.'s possession. Surely their mere existence and the radical change in the outfit reminded the former Xana Warrior about what had happened.

"At least I got my sword back," William remarked, satisfied, and tried its weight in his hand with careful movements. It felt lighter than the previous one, and admittedly it did not look as elegant. There was something unpleasant in the strange, dark roots and the white circle seemed eerily empty and additional in the first half of the blade. It was as if something bad had taken root in it even though X.A.N.A.'s eyes were conspicuously absent in his whole form. It had not, however, erased the dark colors that had swallowed his white attire during the destruction of the Heart of Lyoko.

William trembled and forced himself to stop thinking about the topic. He did not want to recall the memories he had pushed aside and tried to turn more obscure. He did not want them to return to his mind and become sharper upon getting attention.

"It's a good sign," Aelita noted, looking at the sword. He knew and remembered the difference just as clearly as William did; after all, she had been with William on his first trip to Lyoko.

"Right. Then it's a good moment to try materialization," Jeremy stated, optimistic, and typed the command. "Materialize William."

William noticed his body turning into pixels and disintegrating. Aelita smiled, content, and William could not help smiling back in joy before his face disappeared. Red and black and then the scanner opened up. William stepped out of it in relief, seeing the already familiar scanner room.

"Finally here again," he breathed quietly to himself and then called out to Jeremy to the lab, "Here I am, Jeremy!"

"Yay!" Jeremy exclaimed and heard the others' rejoicing on Lyoko. Then he started to materialize the others who greeted William happily upon returning to the scanner.

Nonetheless, in the middle of the smiling Alex had to get serious and say, "William, you have to tell us what happened at Serafina's base."

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	7. Part 6: His Own Place

Everyone else got serious as well. William nodded to Alex. He had to tell them. Maybe Alex, who knew Serafina as an enemy the best, could explain why the girl's treatment had deviated from Alex's description so radically. He wanted an answer for that. Even more than that, he _needed_ an answer for that.

"Come here, to the lab, so you'll have more space," Jeremy called out down to the scanners. "And I'll hear you better."

"Yeah, of course," William said. He already gathered his memories together and processed them. How would he explain the incidents of his captivity the best?

He was not fully ready when the elevator opened at the lab and the group stepped out into the dimmer room. The memory of how he had been rejected on the final mission against X.A.N.A. returned to William's mind as he looked at the group that now seemed more neutral and even more worried. Now he was not guilty for anything, so he had no reason to get up on the defensive, yet he still felt himself subconsciously preparing for a rejection. The memory of that day was still too fresh and the wounds had barely had the time to merely close up. The healing would only begin now.

Perhaps a new enemy against whom to fight was what he actually needed to heal his wounds. This new fight was his new chance to take the place he had lost previously and properly befriend the other Lyoko Warriors.

"We only know that Serafina tied you to Lyoko and her base and extorted us. Then the connection was cut off. What happened after that?" Jeremy explained. "How did you survive Serafina in such a good state?"

William gathered his thoughts together and started, "Serafina didn't hurt me even once." He observed the astonished expressions.

"What did you just say?" Alex asked, sounding shocked.

"Serafina didn't hurt me even once," William repeated, now slightly more certain about himself. "Not even once even though she did have opportunities."

"But why?" Ulrich wondered.

"I don't know," William answered.

"Did she touch you at any point?" Alex asked, now seeming worried.

"Yeah," William answered. He remembered the stroking on his upper arm vividly. "But she was surprisingly... gentle." After having found the suitable adjective he was no longer sure how he would be reacted to. The rest of the group exchanged surprised glances, eyebrows rising in astonishment. This description did not match with the one given by Alex at all!

"Are you entirely sure she did not hurt you?" Yumi asked, sincerely worried. William noticed it and felt his hope alight; perhaps he had chances for a proper friendship with Yumi after all.

"Why would I lie? I'm here now, safe with you. I don't need to fear that Serafina would appear from somewhere and twist my arms broken or something just because I told truthfully what happened," William answered calmly. He was slightly offended by the question but Yumi's genuine worry countervailed it. She did not deserve an angry answer.

"Were you conscious all the time?" Jeremy asked.

"Conscious?" William repeated. It was a tough question. "Yeah, if we don't count that I fell asleep sometime during the night hours. I just couldn't stay awake no matter how hard I tried."

"Did you feel anything during your sleep or had anything changed after you fell asleep?" Alex asked.

"Well, I remember being on a rocky ground before I fell asleep but I woke up with my head on a pillow and a blanket around me," William told. "I would've woken up earlier for sure if I'd been hurt. But even when I woke up, I still didn't feel any pain at all."

"Weird... That doesn't sound like the Serafina we heard about," Odd remarked, looking at Alex whose eyebrows were furrowed during the brainwork.

"Where did Serafina touch you?" Alex asked, worried.

"To my shoulders and to my right upper arm at least when I was awake," William answered.

"How did Serafina treat you overall? How did she react to you?" Alex asked. "I know that this is terribly interrogation-like, but we have to know what happened."

"It's alright, I do understand, "William replied. He pondered for a moment how to answer the questions. "Like I said, Serafina was gentle. She... she kept repeating that she wouldn't harm me. And undeniably she was friendly towards me." The further William explained, the more strongly he understood how wrong it felt to not just him but also the others.

"Did you discuss?" Alex asked.

"Yes," William answered.

At the very instant he felt a jab of his conscience. He had told Serafina quite a lot. He had gotten carried away by the friendliness and interest and he had not been careful with what he had told.

"What did you talk about?" Aelita asked.

"We talked about a little bit of this and that," William answered, shrugging. "We talked randomly about our lives."

"Did Serafina tell you about her own life?" Odd asked.

"Actually, quite a lot," William told. "Although a lot of it conflicted with Alex's story. Lyra was supposedly her sister and not Alex's."

"Well of course," Alex scoffed. "Now I think I understand what she's trying to do."

"Please do enlighten us," Ulrich said.

"Serafina's trying psychology instead of her usual brutality," Alex explained. "She's giving a completely different image of herself than me in order to cause confusion so that you'd wonder if I'm the good guy who tells the truth after all. Maybe she also tried to cause William to have Stockholm syndrome. That's a nasty thing."

William looked at the floor. Admittedly, it had worked on him; he was confused and did not know what to think.

"William? What now?" Aelita asked, worried. She had immediately noticed the change in her black-haired comrade's mood.

"I just don't know what to think. Serafina was so kind to me, so interested in what I had to say..." William explained and shrugged his shoulder again, uncertain. "I don't know what's right in this and who's telling the truth and who isn't. And who's on the right side..."

Alex saw the desperation in William's eyes right away and understood its origin. He was not completely privy on the events of the Lyoko Warriors' fight, but William's case he knew. He looked at the other Lyoko Warriors who looked at each other, frowning. No one knew how to react to William's words.

Luckily, Alex knew.

"I understand very well that you're confused. You've been in this hassle for just a very short time and you aren't completely let in on the things yet," he said understandingly. William raised his eyes to look at him, seeing the other boy coming towards him. Alex put his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Believe me, I understand you." Then he turned to look at the others. "If Serafina plans to attack our psyches instead of our bodies, one thing is for sure. This group must not have weak links."

Alex felt William's shoulder tense at those words.

"Our weakest link is only as weak as the other links make it. We must pull together, get along with one another and be friends or we can never defeat Serafina and Alicia. We cannot afford discord or pushing anyone aside. On the final moments of X.A.N.A. you seemed to not only have the face but also, to your fortune, could afford pushing William aside no matter how much he tried to help you. Now you absolutely can't afford that. Hopefully you don't have the face either," Alex let his accusatory gaze eat into the others' consciences. He felt William's shoulder relax now that the former Xana Warrior realized that he was defending his comrade.

"You've already taken the right direction, but it hasn't healed the wounds yet, has it, William?" Alex looked into William's eyes now.

"No, it hasn't," William answered. The wounds had not healed indeed, and this situation proved it. He had felt his place in the group threatened and it still was not over.

"I thought so," Alex said compassionately. He felt sorry for this boy in whose eyes he saw the concealed fear of being rejected hiding deep inside. He looked at the others again. "We must be a solid group, we all. Otherwise we have no hope of victory."

"You're right. We shouldn't have pushed William away from us in the first place," Jeremy remarked. From the very beginning, he had been in favor of taking William with them when he had approached them after Xanafication. It did take courage to return after being possessed by the AI for multiple months even though he did not remember anything of it. William did, however, remember the Scyphozoa and its tentacles and knew that after being freed he had come to a time and place changed during the months.

"Absolutely," Aelita seconded. Odd and Ulrich, the latter remembering the events of X.A.N.A.'s day of death very well, nodded in support. Yumi had to comply as well even though she did not really want William into the group after the boy had gotten possessed by X.A.N.A. out of his own stupidity. To everyone's chagrin, she had been right about taking him with them being a bad idea.

However, she, too, knew that Alex was right. William had come to stay, and he could not be excluded from them anymore, not by any means now that X.A.N.A. had left its mark on the boy. If they pushed William away now, it was guaranteed that Serafina would take advantage of it. They had to cooperate. No one wanted to face William as an enemy ever again at any cost.

Perhaps William had learned from it. They would see about that.

Alex turned to look at William again, his expression turning friendly quickly. "Do you have anything else to tell us?"

"No," William answered, calmed. He felt more confident now that he was not alone against everyone but he had someone next to him as support.

"Then I think we can all return to the school. The lessons are waiting," Alex said, smiling.

They left the factory without discussing anything special. They had to return to the lessons. On the bridge, as William and Alex waited that the others would get to the sewers, William said, "Thank you for defending me."

"No problem," Alex said, smiling widely. "It's a pleasure to help. And anyway, we must stick together. If you ever have any worries, you can share them with me. I'll listen to you."

The smile came on William's lips almost naturally; Alex's joy was contagious.

"Thanks. And if you ever have any worries, do share them with me," William said reciprocally.

"Okay", Alex said, smiling even more widely.

"Hey, come on already!" Jeremy called out from the sewer.

"We're coming!" William answered and went to the ladders first. Alex followed him.

Perhaps it was just the sunlight, but for some reason William felt livelier and more lighthearted than in the dimmer lab. However, he believed catching Alex's positivity to be a contributory cause.

He had a place among the Lyoko Warriors after all.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	8. Part 7: A Surprise Attack

Serafina and Alicia had completely disappeared from the map upon leaving to search for a new place for their base. They were nowhere to be seen. Two weeks went by and no one heard anything about the duo. Especially Odd, whose grades had gotten up since the destruction of X.A.N.A. but abruptly gone down after Serafina had become exposed, hoped that Serafina and Alicia had somehow been destroyed after disappearing. Perhaps the duo had fallen to the Digital Sea or gotten crushed by a random falling rock or destroyed by a surviving monster. However, Alex disagreed.

And right he was, as Jeremy's Superscanner suddenly notified of an active tower and that its activator was unknown.

"Please don't tell me that it's..." Ulrich did not want to believe it.

"It can't be anyone else," Alex said, knowing whom Ulrich was thinking about. "Let's go to the factory."

They got up from the bench right away and ran to the factory, some of them feeling the nostalgia of those countless of runs to the factory upon X.A.N.A. activating a tower.

 _At the factory_

"The active tower is on the Ice Sector. You'll be faced with five Crabs and two Hornets, so watch out," Jeremy said as he started the virtualization process.

"Crabs and Hornets?" William repeated while stepping to a scanner, excited. "This is gonna be exciting!"

"Oh, you just wait till you run into Tarantulas or Megatanks," Ulrich sneered.

"Tarantulas?!" William repeated in horror as the scanner closed. He heard Jeremy's commands and felt his hair rise up – that is, more up than they usually were. Black and red and once again a familiar scenery, colored by blue's shades. William landed on his feet just as naturally as back when he was virtualized on Sector 5.

"It'd be cool to see the other sectors too," he remarked.

"I guess we could make a tour after this attack," Alex noted. "If that's ok to the rest of you."  
"Let's see, how this goes. It could be fun to refresh memories and see the familiar sceneries," Odd said.

"It's fine by me, at least," Aelita said, smiling after having landed behind the boys. "It's been a long time since I last was on a stroll on Lyoko."

"The tower first," Jeremy reminded. "Here are the vehicles, head west."

"Do you think you control your Super Smoke well enough to keep up with us without hitchhiking?" Ulrich asked, challenging William.

"I don't know," William answered honestly. "But I won't find it out or learn if I don't use it."

"True. You can learn to use the Lyoko powers only by doing," Yumi noted. "You did seem to use it somehow the last time. It'll get easier after that."

William nodded, grateful about the encouragement. Alex jumped aboard Ulrich's Overbike, Aelita got up on her wings and William sought his smoke form with which to move. It was still most strange and unfamiliar to him, but he was motivated to get used to it. The others left before him, but William managed to get to their speed. Despite of problems, he started to understand Super Smoke's function very soon. Perhaps part of the speed stemmed from the subconscious know-how that had been left behind by X.A.N.A.

But on the other hand, Super Smoke was actually downright easy to use when you understood it. William spurted ahead of Ulrich and observed the samurai's reaction with interest. Of course, he accelerated and soon William noticed he was racing against him with great eagerness. Had he been able to, he would have laughed in elation. This was extremely entertaining! This race was something entirely different than competing on Earth, and admittedly this was far more fun in some way as well.

"Heeeyyy! Watch out a bit, Ulrich, you have a passenger on board!" Alex shouted in horror. This speed terrified him; if he fell, he would lose an unpleasant amount of life points, if he would survive it altogether. He did not dare to look behind him to see where the others went either. The blocks of ice went by too fast.

The laser of a Megatank returned the affair they were on Lyoko for to the minds of the two racers.

"That's a Megatank!" Ulrich shouted to William while slowing down to get his vehicle under a better control. "Watch out, it devirtualizes you in one hit!"

William took it as a challenge. He went straight towards it and quickly dodged the lasers, getting to the monster without problems. He appeared out of Super Smoke with his sword in his hand and struck the interior of the Megatank, hitting the eye of X.A.N.A. The monster exploded into pieces. William returned to the protection of Super Smoke and returned to the rest of the group.

"Good job, William," Jeremy said, content upon seeing the monster disappear from the map.

"That went well! One could believe that you've done this before!" Odd shouted.

"Very well done for a first-timer," Ulrich had to say with approval; after all, Megatanks did still cause him trouble from time to time. After being against the sword of the black-haired boy for countless of times, he was pleased to see the same huge thing on their side. Even in the hands of an amateur it caused a lot of destruction.

"Thanks," William said while appearing back into his human form. He felt super powerful but knew nowadays that at any cost he had to not let it get up on his head. That he had learned the hard way during X.A.N.A.'s time with severe consequences. While glancing at his spiky wrist armor, William believed that he might have to carry the scars from that mistake for the rest of his life.

"The tower is nearby, you can see it for sure," Jeremy said. "It's in the square surrounded by an iceberg."

"Yeah, there it is," Aelita said, pointing at the tower. "It has a strange color."

The others looked at the direction Aelita pointed to. The pink-haired girl was right; the tower's glow was sickly yellow.

"I think that tower is about to puke," Odd joked. However, his joke caused little smile.

"There are now two Tarantulas at the tower in addition to the original welcoming committee. Serafina and Alicia are nowhere to be seen," Jeremy told. William briefly trembled in revulsion. What kind of a horror could those Tarantulas be?

"They're undoubtedly hiding and testing us," Alex said, scoffing. "Cowards."

"Deactivate the tower anyway. We don't know if activating it is just a test or if there's some attack coming towards the factory here on Earth," Jeremy said.

"Roger that, Jeremy," Yumi said. "Let's go."

They continued their way to the tower. William and Ulrich no longer raced but concentrated on detecting the threat as soon as it appeared.

"Here we come, monsters!" Odd exclaimed.

The Tarantulas started to shoot them for afar.

"Watch out for the Tarantulas' lasers!" Aelita shouted while dodging a laser.

 _Those are Tarantulas?_ William wondered. He would not have thought about them as spiders at all!

A flash in the memory. Some recollection was coming up.

 _No._ William would have shaken his head if he could have. He did not want memories now.

He continued forward without minding the lasers. They would not hit him anyway; he was too small a target for the monsters. Now he saw the Hornets and the Crabs as well. They looked ever so strange, but he had said the same about the Creepers as well. This was Lyoko, and apparently X.A.N.A. had had some imagination while creating the monsters. William decided not to be surprised by any new monster; they probably were all just as strange-looking.

The group attacked. William sliced a Tarantula in half without a problem while the adjacent one was shot by Odd. Yumi dealt with Hornets with her fans and in the meantime Ulrich and Alex went straight to the Crabs. Alex got hit by a laser but was not devirtualized as William moved to shield him with his sword before the devirtualizing laser. Odd finished the job and Aelita flew to the tower. However, she did not make it even to its center when it already blew up, tossing not only Aelita but also the other Lyoko Warriors into the water surrounding the tower. Aelita saw a cave under the water but not the vortex that suddenly grabbed them all to its fist.

It threw them around and around, and while trying to get free they collided with each other perpetually without being able to see or notice who they had collided with. The vortex threw them around for a while and then tossed them back to the entrance of the clearing of the tower – everyone except Aelita, whom the vortex threw into the cave with a great speed. On the surface, the others noticed that the girl was still underwater, so they dove back there. There was not a single trace of the vortex nor Aelita, so they headed to the cave. There they only found its end, but nothing or nobody. Aelita had disappeared just as mysteriously as the vortex had appeared. The Lyoko Warriors rose back to the surface, worried.

"What do we do now?" William asked, anxious. He could not understand where Aelita had disappeared to, so he feared for her.

"I dunno," Alex said. "Jeremy?"

"I... I don't know. I can't locate Aelita..." Jeremy said in shock. He could not grasp that his girlfriend had disappeared without a trace. This he had not wanted at all. _Why Aelita?_

Since there were no traces to be found, Jeremy materialized the others and tried to figure what to do. In the meantime, the others returned to the school, helpless and crestfallen. For the time being, they had lost one of the members of the group who knew where. Again.

So much for that tour around Lyoko's other sectors.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	9. Part 8: The Negotiation

Aelita lost her consciousness at some point during the sling of the vortex and was not aware of where she ended up afterwards. When waking up, she saw a dark-gray ceiling but could not move right away.

"Are you sure that this did not go badly?" asked a vaguely familiar voice. "She still doesn't move."

"Pretty sure that it didn't. I can't be completely sure. We're in for it real bad if this went badly," answered another vaguely familiar voice.

"Why do we keep working on this part? Couldn't we have created...?" asked the one who had spoken first.

"It would've been too much in such a short time. There's too much going on now. At least here we'll stay alert and at a good spot," answered the other one. "But let's let this be now, please? There's enough to be thought about anyway..."

"Do you mean...?"

"Yes. And I absolutely don't dare to go closer. Let's wait for the night."

Aelita sat up, trying to remember what had happened. Suddenly, the explosion of the tower and the vortex returned to her mind and she turned her head to the direction where the suddenly ceased discussion had come from. There she saw the conversationalists, a hawk and a black-haired girl – Alicia and Serafina. They both looked out of the openings in the thorn bush fence. Aelita took a deep breath and tried to stand up carefully and as quietly as possible. She could not get any kind of touch to Lyoko or her powers. Was this the loss of powers that William had faced upon being imprisoned?

Aelita stood up and sought for the Energy Field to come to her hand. However, the power did not come to her now that she truly needed it. Serafina turned her head to look at her and noticed what was going on.

"How are you feeling?" the black-haired girl asked. Aelita did not dare to answer. Worry came to Serafina's face and she asked, "Are you ok? Like, so that you can talk."

"Y-yes," Aelita answered carefully. Even though William had somehow survived without injuries at Serafina's claws, Aelita did not believe in her own chances. X.A.N.A. had gotten her one way or another so many times that she knew that she was not a strong fighter like, for example, William, who had been a powerful warrior from the beginning despite of everything.

Yes, Aelita had not forgotten how easily William had shredded Creepers with his sword in Sector Five months ago even though the huge sword had not even stayed under its wielder's control constantly. And now Aelita had fresh in her mind how easily William had destroyed a Tarantula, not to mention the Megatank which had appeared before the tower!

"Good. I already got worried about you," Serafina answered. "The places and defense systems are a bit messed and in need of adjustment here, so I feared that something went badly wrong. The intention wasn't to kill you or anything."  
"What do you want from me?" Aelita asked, afraid.

"The same as from William. A hostage," Serafina answered calmly without being a threat. Her weapons lay on the table many meters from the thorn bush and the girl was far from Aelita anyway, so she could not immediately attack her prisoner. However, it did not comfort the pink-haired girl as she could not fight with mere fists and kicks as well as Yumi or Ulrich.

"Why did you catch me?" Aelita asked.

"You were easy to catch. I activate a tower, lure you there, you go to the tower without foreseeing anything, bang! You stepped into our trap," Serafina explained, hitting her hands together to emphasize the bang. "And besides, you aren't as dangerous as a prisoner as the others. William probably could've beaten me up if he had decided to try and had gotten a favorable opportunity. But, according to my understanding, you aren't a fighter."

Aelita did not dare to admit it. This girl was her enemy and she could not tell her weaknesses to her.

"That's what I thought," Serafina noted, interpreting the silence as a yes. "That's fine, the calm people are needed in the world too."

"For how long are you going to keep me?" Aelita asked, her voice wavering.

"For as long as I have to," Serafina answered. "I'm optimistic that you don't have to be here with us for long. After all, you are a very important part of the group, so I believe the group will yield."

Aelita did not want Alex to die at Serafina's hands because of her. What on earth could she do?

At the same time, Jeremy tried to come up with a way to hack Serafina's base. The problem was that it was still well hidden, and they had no direct knowledge of its location. The closest localization had been the place of Aelita's disappearance, while the new ransom demand had come from some sort of a routing point that hid the base's location and, on the contrary, led them astray. The others, on the other hand, tried to figure out how they could free Aelita altogether.

"We must be able to do something!" William noted. "There has to be something that will succeed!"

"We can't take risks. Serafina might hurt Aelita if we do something rash," Alex remarked, solemn. "The way she treated you only makes her even more unpredictable. We can't count on her treating Aelita the same way."  
"I know... But there has to be some way! If we can't make a charge, there has to be something with which we can turn her head," William said, desperate.

"But what?" Yumi asked.

"I don't know, send her a virus that messes her base, send her something with which we can locate her and Aelita, give her something that she's willing to trade Aelita for. Something," William said.

"Give her something..." Alex repeated quietly to himself.

"But what will we give her? Strategic data? Games? Entertainment? Some powers?" Odd asked.

"Let's give her something valuable. Something she wants to get back," Alex answered. His eyes twinkled from inspiration.

"What do you have in mind?" Yumi asked carefully. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Something she absolutely cannot refuse," Alex answered. A satisfied smile rose on his face.

Aelita had sat on the ground calmly, but she watched Serafina, who sat in front of her, suspicious without letting her come close. Serafina's behavior did not differ from how William had described it at all, but Alex had drilled to each Lyoko Warrior that they must not trust it. The lack of brutality was an extremely strange change in Serafina, and such a change only meant that the girl had turned highly unpredictable. If she was suddenly terribly kind, she could easily turn into a monster just as suddenly.

Despite of Alex's warnings, Aelita did not feel the girl to be a threat when she sat on the same level as her and talked to her like a friend to another. For some reason, Serafina managed to create a pleasant air and act like a normal person. No matter how much Aelita tried, she could not see the person Alex had described her to be in the girl who sat next to her, twittering. Telling about the innocent mishaps of childhood just did not match with a coldblooded torturer. It was too innocent, too light and yet too genuine. Aelita now understood very well how poor William had felt. This uncertainty was horrible.

"Serafina," Alicia suddenly called, interrupting a story about how Lyra had gotten stuck in a tree and the other children and their partners had not been able to get her down. "Come here."

"Just a moment," Serafina said, smiling to Aelita, and got up. She walked to the thorn bush fence and asked, "What now?"

"The lights disappeared," Alicia said, nodding forward. Serafina sighed and rubbed her forehead. This was not an expected nor a good turn.

"What do we do now?" Alicia asked.

"Let's go check it out anyway when it gets a bit darker," Serafina answered.

"What are you planning?" Aelita asked out of pure interest. Perhaps she could get some valuable information by the way of kindness. She was not a strong fighter, but she certainly was not stupid or without a sense of strategy.

"There're some strange lights we haven't created further away from here. We figured we'd go and see what they are at night. Well, now they're gone." Serafina shrugged. "I guess we could go check the place out anyway. Do you want to come with us?"

"Me?" Aelita asked, astonished.

"Yeah, you." Serafina smiled. "Unless you want to stay and hunch all alone here in the cave."

"Well, if I may come... then I guess I could come with you," Aelita answered, hesitating. She feared this to be a trap, but on the other hand she could get a chance to learn more about this place. Serafina's smile seemed to become even happier.

"Neat! It's nice to get some human company for a walk," she said. Then her expression turned sadder; it became wistful. "It's been a very long time since I've had another human with me on a walk."

"Really?" Aelita maintained the conversation with her question even though she suspected that she already knew who had been there as Serafina's fellow the last time.

"Yeah. I don't even remember well anymore when Alex took Lyra and, at the same time, Dan from us. Before William joined Lyoko's set anyway." Serafina looked at the table. There was a framed picture of her in brighter clothes, Alicia, a blonde-haired girl and a wolf on a butterfly meadow. There was a crack that went over the girl and the wolf on the glass. "Don't even remember it well... There's just the feeling that we left... that I left them to suffer and die there in Alex's hands. I don't remember anything... Suddenly Alicia and I just were alone and there was nothing at all to be heard from Lyra and Dan ever again."

Aelita remembered from Alex's story that Serafina and Alicia had abandoned Lyra and Dan on the battlefield when they had no longer been of use for them. However, Serafina's sorrow gave another motive for the abandonment, if it had truly happened: something had happened and Serafina and Alicia had been forced to abandon their comrades. If a strange change from brutal to friendly had happened in Serafina, had perhaps losing Lyra and Dan triggered it? Aelita chided herself in her mind; she could not let Serafina's real-looking sorrow confuse her. It could be a mere show with which the girl tried to make her change sides as well.

A peculiar beep came from the crystal ball. Serafina reacted to it by hurrying to it, while Alicia turned on the thorn bush fence. Serafina opened the interface, seeing what had caused the beep: Alex's contact via a video call.

"Can your demand be negotiated?" Alex asked briefly.

"Perhaps. What do you propose?" Serafina asked.

"If you release Aelita, I will release Lyra and Dan," Alex said. Serafina's eyes widened and Alicia's feathers rose upright.

"I will accept that if you tell the truth and I see that Lyra and Dan are ok," Serafina said, her voice suddenly hollow. She could not believe it, but she wanted to believe. She wanted to believe that Lyra and Dan were not dead like she and Alicia had thought after all, that there was still hope to get them back and continue the battle as a group of four once more.

"Gotcha. Hey, you two, come say hello to your old pals!" Alex said. Alicia flew to Serafina's shoulder to watch, shocked and incredulous.

Alex moved away from the view and Lyra and Dan came to his place.

"They are in hypnosis, you crud! That's not fair play! If you don't remove the hypnosis from them, Aelita will stay here!" Serafina and Alicia said in a surprisingly united chorus. The shared fury rose with force. They wanted Lyra and Dan back, but they wanted them as themselves.

"Fine, I'll remove it in front of your eyes at the scene, not yet. If they'd get to do what they'd want now, nothing could happen. Is Aelita there and alright?" Alex asked eagerly.

"She is," Serafina answered briefly. Alicia nodded to Aelita, who showed herself to the video.

"Are you ok there?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, I am," Aelita answered and glanced the duo next to her diffidently. "I'm ok."

"Thank God," Alex said, relieved. "I'd like to say that you won't believe how worried we all have been, but I think that you do. Serafina, what do you say if we meet at the place of your old base and release our prisoners? Right now, shall we?" Alex was in a hurry both to get Aelita free and to prevent Serafina from tracking his base.

"Yes. Come fast!" Serafina said and closed the interface.

"Okay, let's go!" Alicia said. Serafina pressed a few buttons and then beckoned Aelita to come after her towards the back wall of the cave. They would get out through there.

Aelita followed the duo and sighed in relief upon seeing the Ice Sector again. Soon she would get away from her imprisonment, that she now knew for certain.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	10. Part 9: Together Again

While Alicia, Serafina and Aelita traveled towards the location of the old base, in his own secret base Alex prepared resolutely to what he had promised Serafina.

"Alex, are you absolutely sure that this is a good idea?" Yumi asked from the lab, uncertain. She was suspicious of this idea which Alex had gotten from William's words. Admittedly, Alex looked suspicious to her anyway, even though despite of William's talk she did not trust Serafina either. Perhaps her suspicions were just caused by what had happened with William and she did not want to trust in any new member, but the mismatch between Alex's story and the Serafina they had faced did not make her feel any more confident.

"Yes!" Alex retorted, fazing everyone. "If Serafina does something horrible to Aelita, it's my fault! It was me who called you Lyoko Warriors to fight against Serafina! I have to get Aelita out of Serafina's base before it's too late! And if Serafina gets her on her side, we'll be in trouble! We'd have no one who could deactivate towers! Serafina could steamroll us just with them and she wouldn't have to fight by herself! Lyra and Dan aren't such experienced fighters, so they won't cause too much damage. We can beat them easily, just like I have proved to myself."

"Fine. You do know what you're doing," Yumi said. No one else said anything. They had to trust their newest comrade's discretion and hope that it would not take them to a bad path like William's discretion had taken them.

Serafina, Alicia and Aelita waited for Alex and the others already when they finally arrived. Serafina looked at Alex with a strange gaze from which was hard to make sense.

"Okay, it's time to remove the hypnosis," Alex said and snapped his fingers, whereupon Lyra and Dan seemed to awaken. First, they immediately noticed Alex and jumped back. Lyra took an arrow and Dan revealed his long and sharp teeth.

"Your part of the agreement, Serafina," Alex reminded Serafina. Lyra and Dan looked at the direction Alex looked at and were overjoyed.

"Serafina! Alicia!" Lyra cried out. Serafina smiled widely. Then she turned towards Aelita and said briefly but in a friendly and calm manner, "Just go."

Aelita went to Alex quickly, relieved of having escaped this unharmed, and Alex said, "Okay, that's it! Shall we let the battles be and head back? I bet you have a lot to talk about."

"Fine," Serafina said. Alicia added, "I feel like saying that let's shake, but I think I won't. Let's restrain our urge to kill each other."

"Materialize Alex and Aelita!" Jeremy's voice came over Alicia's, and Aelita and Alex were materialized before either of them had the time to reply.

"Okay, let's go," Lyra said merrily and turned to go where the base had been.

"The base has changed its location," Serafina told.

"Really?" Dan asked, surprised.

"Yeah. When we get to the new base, we can explain everything. Come!" Alicia said, and so they returned to their new base.

On Earth, Aelita told others what had happened at Serafina's base, after which the other Lyoko Warriors told what had happened while she had been imprisoned. The topic was quickly discussed to its conclusion because Aelita had been imprisoned for less than a day and much had not happened. There was not much to be told as Aelita could refer to William's story and set off a large portion of the events with it.

Aelita did not miss William's relieved expression, as the boy now knew that someone else knew how he felt. Now there was someone who believed him for sure. The pink-haired girl did not miss the stealthy, suspicious looks the other Lyoko Warriors exchanged between each other behind Alex's back either. There was something awry in this battle, they all saw that. Something did not match the information they had gotten, but what? Was Serafina deceiving them or was Alex lying to them?

However, no one dared to open their mouths now and voice their suspicions. They would have to discuss them without Alex later, when the right moment would come.

At the base, Lyra and Dan told what had happened before they had been hypnotized. They had been left no memory of what they had done while under hypnosis. The memories returned to Serafina and Alicia's minds now as Lyra and Dan returned them with their description. Now they remembered and understood once again what had happened.

Serafina and Alicia, on the other hand, told what had happened when Lyra and Dan had been hypnotized. There was narrative from multiple months ago, from already before William had ever stepped into a scanner. There were enough things to be told...

A couple of days passed. Aelita caught on with what was going on at school again and could continue the battle without problems. However, she was still bothered by how genuine Serafina's emotions had seemed. She decided to talk about it with William, "William, does Serafina's behavior towards you still bother you?"

"Well, I still think it was really weird," William said, surprised. Everyone else looked at the duo, surprised as well. "How so?"

"I was just wondering," Aelita said. "She seemed so genuinely sad while talking about Lyra and Dan. And those stories about childhood... they felt so real."

"I guess she wasn't always as bad as she has become," Alex remarked. "At least I've understood that as kids Lyra and Serafina were very good friends, and I don't remember opposing it back then. I might've even gotten along with Serafina. Maybe I just didn't notice or know that wickedness that was hiding in her. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that's why Lyra went so gladly on her side instead of mine. Serafina was her friend while I was just the big brother, who was with her less."

"That's sad," Aelita noted. "But if she wasn't always bad, then what changed her?"

"I don't know," Alex noted, at a loss. "I just know that once she rose to the lead of the system of evil, heads started to fall. And some other stuff too. Literally."

"Okay, please don't tell more, I still want to eat," Jeremy said, nauseated by the mental image.

"Sorry," Alex apologized sincerely. "I didn't mean to sicken."

"It's okay," Jeremy replied.

"That could explain why she can pretend to be a friendly person so genuinely," William remarked. "She remembers something from the time when she was such a person and can utilize it in her act skillfully."

"In that case, she is even more dangerous," Ulrich said. "If she can trick people so well that you two are convinced of the authenticity of her feelings, we must be on our guard."

"True," Alex said.

Next, the Superscanner alarmed.

"Serafina began an attack," Jeremy announced. Right after that, the cafeteria's lights went out.

"What now?" someone at the adjacent table wondered when it was suddenly dark.

"Now this is timely," Alex remarked dryly in the middle of the clamor.

"Could this be the attack?" Aelita asked.

"Turning the cafeteria's lights off?" William asked.

"Cutting off the electricity completely. It seems that the school building has gone dark too," Jeremy noted.

"Totally possible. Taking the electricity away from us would make everything more difficult," Alex remarked. "We couldn't charge our phones or Jeremy's laptop, whereupon we would become unable to communicate or get information on Lyoko's situation in real time."

"Let's go to the factory," Ulrich said.

The Lyoko Warriors started to tack their way through in the dim cafeteria, away from the midst of other people while Ulrich sent Yumi a message about the attack. As soon as they got outside, there was wider space, so they could begin to run even before the park. They reached the factory easily and met Yumi, but that was where the problems started; the elevator did not work. Serafina had cut off the electricity from all of the city – from the elevator as well.

"Let's go the other way," Jeremy said.

"What other way?" Alex asked.

"This way," Ulrich said and started to lead the group towards the darkness of the factory. Yumi took her phone up and used it as a flashlight to light their way. Aelita and Odd tried to do the same, but their phones were not made to be proper flashlights.

William tried not to mind the shadows that seemed to come at him like X.A.N.A.'s specters. He shook his head and, trying to concentrate only on running, focused his eyes on the back of the head of Ulrich, who ran ahead of him. His memories of the day of X.A.N.A.'s death and his imagination would both have to wait for daylight or devirtualization.

Luckily, Serafina had not blocked the group's longer route to the lab. The Lyoko Warriors got there and to the scanners without problems.

"Serafina's activated tower is waiting you on the Mountain sector. Be careful," Jeremy reported.

"In the mountains? Cool! Do we have climbing equipment with us?" Odd exclaimed. William smiled shortly while waiting for his turn to step into the scanner.

"Let's go, then," Alex noted when the scanners opened. He, William and Aelita stepped into the freed scanners and Jeremy virtualized them on the Mountain Sector.

"Wow," William breathed upon seeing the views. "We're real high."

"Actually, you aren't. You're at the lowest area of the sector. There are just so many clouds above that you don't see the parts of the sector that are in the heights," Jeremy told.

"Cool!" William noted without being annoyed by the fact that he had been wrong. This only increased his interest.

"Nonetheless, we can't stay to watch the sceneries yet. You'll have the time to admire them when the tower has been deactivated," Ulrich remarked, smiling. Even though deep inside he still was not completely in favor of having William with them, admittedly his missed enthusiasm on getting to know Lyoko did get him to a better mood. William reminded him of the times when he, Odd and Yumi had once arrived at Lyoko for the first times and learned to become Lyoko Warriors, seeing only new things each time.

Oh, those good times. Nonetheless, those times were far behind in those months when X.A.N.A. could not possess anyone yet and they had no idea about the Scyphozoa. When Hopper had been but a name in Kadic's history books as Mrs. Hertz's predecessor. When so many things in the fight could surprise them and put the world in danger.

The vehicles appeared. The Lyoko Warriors set off and Ulrich quitted his reminiscence. Perhaps he could even exchange some experiences on learning to be a Lyoko Warrior with William; it could be a good place to start building the comradeship from. After all, the experiences of Lyoko-Warriorhood were a strong and undeniable foundation which could support the comradeship in the stiffness of the beginning.

"Three Mantas are coming your way from north-west. Watch out!" Jeremy warned.

"Roger," Alex said and looked north-west. He saw three flying monsters. "Prepare yourselves, there they come."

William rose higher to see the Mantas better.

"Go, William and I will deal with this," Odd said.

"Are you sure? You're two against one," Ulrich asked.

"We'll be fine. If William trashed a Megatank and a Tarantula last time, then I believe the two of us can deal with a few Mantas!" Odd said with a grin on his face.

"Okay, good luck," Aelita said and glided ahead of the others as they continued on their route forward with two of them staying behind.

The Mantas started to show William and Odd. Odd dodged gracefully but William stayed put. Manta was a designation very familiar to him, and he could imagine the blue Mantas coming towards them as black clearly. Odd already destroyed one Manta with a laser arrow but fell off his Overboard when another Manta hit him. William flew rapidly after him after noticing that he would fall past the ground.

"William, what are you trying?" Jeremy asked. William could not answer. He sought his sword and hands ready in Super Smoke. He spurted past Odd and returned to his human form, grabbing his hand with his right hand while he sought balance in levitation with the help of his sword in his left hand. Odd's weight crashed against the muscles of his whole arm with a strong twitch, and for a while William thought he was losing his balance and falling. Nevertheless, the sword stayed put even though two people hung from it.

"Odd, are you ok?" William asked. He did not know for how long he could hold onto his sword.

"Yeah. Can you swing me back to the surface?" Odd answered. William looked at the route from which he had gotten up to the air. It was close enough.

"Will do," he answered. "Are you ready?"

"Let's do it... Hey, where are those Mantas?" Odd said. William turned his head and noticed the still-alive Manta duo. They looked at them without attacking. William got an idea.

"Manta... Come here," he called. "Come, both of you."

"What are you going to do?" Odd asked, worried. He remembered William having commanded the monster with harshness while being the general of X.A.N.A.'s monster army. If he suddenly started to show signs of that, they might have a problem especially since the Mantas obeyed and came next to them.

"Give us a ride back to the surface," William commanded them. He kept his voice level even though he felt his grip on his sword's hilt slipping clearly. He would survive, but Odd might fall out of sight and disappear. He did not know what was down there and he did not want to find it out the hard way either.

The other Manta moved under them, giving Odd a chance to place his weight on it, off William's arm. William let go when he was certain that Odd would not fall.

"Will you get me to my Overboard?" Odd asked the Manta, surprised. It looked at William.

"Do as Odd asked," the black-haired boy gave the serene order while placing his right hand on his sword. He got a better position immediately when the levitation was stabilized. "Phew, that was so close."

The other Manta moved under him now.

"That's quite some vehicle!" Odd shouted while jumping on the Overboard. "Thanks!" He did not dare to destroy the Manta which had helped him, even though it had dropped him too.

William dropped from the levitation onto the Manta carefully. The movement which kept that monster in the air felt most familiar. The reins created from Super Smoke flashed in his memory. Perhaps he could get a ride from the monster which seemed to obey him willingly. He would lose nothing if he tried. He closed his eyes, sought the reins with his mind from Super Smoke and felt how they were formed in from his hand. When he opened his eyes, the Manta was completely under his control and Odd looked at him, jaw dropped.

"I didn't know that you can do that yourself," the purple human cat remarked. On the other hand, he was astounded, but then he feared that William would suddenly turn into an enemy.

"I didn't know either. I just tried and it somehow worked out." William shrugged, knowing nothing of Odd's worry. "Let's go, all four. The others are waiting for us!"

He set off to lead Odd and the other Manta on his Manta. The views were gorgeous, but William could not help feeling slight guilt for already using his powers from X.A.N.A.'s time this widely. Odd, instead, was convinced that his comrade was still himself and sped past William, knowing that he would not shoot him in the back. **  
**

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	11. Part 10: An Amateur, Huh?

Aelita heard the cries of the Mantas and turned to look at them, noticing William riding the other one of them. She automatically raised an Energy Field to throw it at him but changed her mind when Odd advanced closer to the ground, shouting a battle cry.

"Jeremy, what are those block-shaped monsters?" William asked.

"Bloks," Jeremy answered.

"Okay. Mantas, attack the Bloks, don't shoot Lyoko Warriors," William commanded. To his amazement, they obeyed and started to shoot at the Bloks, watching out for the Lyoko Warriors. Reciprocally the Bloks, however, started to aim at him and the Mantas as well, and suddenly William noticed he was flying towards the ground as the manta under him exploded with ice chunks. However, he did not wait for a meeting with the surface but proceeded into Super Smoke right away, stopped his flight and lunged towards the Blok with his sword upright. To his dismay, he noticed that the other Manta had been destroyed too, but at least he could avenge their deaths by destroying the Blok which had shot his own Manta.

Next, he turned to look where the next target would be. A Blok shot Ulrich down with some red circle, so William moved to fight that Blok before it would manage to devirtualize Ulrich.

At the same time, hidden a short distance away, a foursome watched the Lyoko Warriors' fight and especially him, even though none of them knew about it.

"Are you totally sure that that black-haired guy is an amateur?" Lyra asked. "He is very competent for one."

"He is powerful," Serafina noted. "He already was when he came here, and then X.A.N.A. gave him Super Smoke, which clearly gives him an advantage. Without it, he would've already gotten devirtualized a while ago."

"If he only recently became a Lyoko Warrior with that gear, then he's still strangely competent. He's learned terribly fast," Lyra remarked.

"May be. Or the time of X.A.N.A.'s possession had left him some knowhow even though he wouldn't necessarily be aware of it," Serafina pondered. "Controlling that Manta is probably one of the more subconscious skills."

"Surely, those Mantas did listen to him out of the custom left by their master anyway," Alicia noted and groomed her feathers. Serafina would watch for her as well.

"Some of the amateurishness does show. Look at him now, so terribly excited of the action while the others are more serious, even that Odd," Dan commented. "He may be strong and surprisingly competent physically, but mentally he's totally an amateur."

"True," Lyra said. "Now is a good time to strike."

"I say that we wait," Serafina said. "Not yet."

"Why not?" Lyra asked.

"I just have that kind of a feeling. It's not the time yet," Serafina answered, solemn.

"But he's getting stronger all the time. And his alliance with the group is getting stronger too. Alex has clearly taken care of that William won't be left by himself," Dan noted.

"That's exactly why," Serafina stated. "That's exactly why we have to wait. If we strike now, we might accidentally harm him and his development as a Lyoko Warrior." She looked at her comrades. "It's absolutely important that nothing happens to him at this phase, when he's still at the amateur level. If something in our plan goes wrong, our effort will go to waste and we'd better just pack our things and leave."

Lyra looked Serafina in the eye, seeing the seriousness in them. From that, she knew that she was serious about this matter. There was no space for contention.

"I trust your judgement," she said. "You know his situation better than I do."

"Thank you," Serafina said genuinely. Aelita entered the tower. "It seems that the show is over. Let's return to the base and analyze what we know now."

Alex sighed in relief when Aelita entered the tower and looked to the direction where Serafina and the others had been. At that point, however, the foursome had already disappeared and even Jeremy did not know that they had been there. Aelita rose to the upper level of the tower and entered the Lyoko code. The tower was deactivated and the power returned. Jeremy could materialize the remaining Lyoko Warriors.

The news told about a peculiar temporary blackout, the reason or cause of which had not been able to locate. No one had been hurt. Therefore, the Return to the Past was not needed.

On the way back to school, Odd told with zest about how William had saved him from falling to the Digital Sea.

"And then William just appeared out of Super Smoke, caught me and remained hanging from his sword in the air! And the Mantas that remained, they obeyed him when he asked them to help us!" Odd explained.

"Very impressive," Aelita said, amazed. She also remembered how she had been about to shoot William, who had been riding a Manta, out of habit.

"How did you even do it? Like, how did you control those Mantas?" Alex asked, equally amazed.

"I don't know, I just gave them orders and they obeyed," William answered. "I didn't expect that they'd obey, but I decided to try."

"And you managed to use your Super Smoke to control the Manta you used as a ride," Odd added. "Cool!"

"You mean cool now," William said, slightly baffled from the attention he got. Commanding the monsters, which had worked by chance for some reason, was not that miraculous in his opinion. "I guess it wasn't before, right?"

"Admittedly, not back when you were under X.A.N.A.'s possession, but now it is," Ulrich noted. "Now that it's used to aid us and not against us, it's very cool."

"And the way you managed to save Odd did sound awesome," Jeremy stated. He knew that he could never do to the same.

William scratched his head. He was delighted of the attention he had gotten, but on the other hand it bewildered him. He had not saved Odd to get praise but just because he was a comrade and a friend. After all, Alex had said that they had to be a unified group and cooperate so that they could defeat Serafina. He just did his own part of it.

"It wasn't that amazing," he said, modest. "I think each of you would've saved Odd if you'd been in my place."

"Of course, but you're an amateur and you still succeeded," Ulrich remarked. "And you even got the Mantas on your side. I doubt they'd listen to us."

William shrugged. He could not say whether Ulrich was right or not.  
"Well, how has a proper beginning as a Lyoko Warrior felt?" Ulrich changed the topic, smiling. "At least you've seemed excited."

"That I've been!" William answered. "Lyoko is a very cool place. It feels like the reasons for surprise just won't end!"

"If Serafina has imagination with traps, they probably won't end!" Odd shouted. "Or you'll always be surprised when a monster shoots you in the back. That never stops surprising!"

"I bet it won't," William smiled shortly. "It's been awesome to get into action! It feels like I learn something on Lyoko all the time."

"Well, I bet you do," Ulrich noted. "You haven't been on Lyoko that many times, so you have a lot to learn."

"Yeah, and you haven't even seen all the sectors, places and monsters!" Aelita remarked. "There are enough things to see on Lyoko!"

"That I believe!" William said excitedly. He remembered seeing the Holomap with just one ball in the middle when he had joined the group, and after being freed he had noticed that four more areas had come to it; the sectors that had been destroyed before his involvement.

"Hopefully next time we'll get to go on that walk around the sectors! It's gonna be fun!" Odd said. "I can show you so many places and remains of the monsters that you won't be able to believe it!"

"Are there remains of the monsters too?" William asked, puzzled. All the monsters he had seen had exploded to smithereens and disappeared.

"Not at all, Odd's just kidding," Ulrich noted, shaking his head cheerfully. "You shouldn't believe everything he tells you."  
"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," William gave a laugh. Odd laughed as well, and Jeremy, Aelita and Alex could not help joining the laughter. In the end, it was quite easy to take William with them when no one held a grudge on the past, even though the events of X.A.N.A.'s time were in the remarkably nearby past. The new enemy had made them leave X.A.N.A. behind even though the same had not happened to Lyoko.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	12. Part 11: Slashes of a Sword

Imminently in the next morning, the same tower was active again. Jeremy alerted the group and soon everyone except Yumi, who stayed at home because of her parents, arrived at the factory. Alex held his wounded shoulder, face a grimace; along the way, there had been a creature swinging with a sword, created on Earth by the tower. The creature had, of course, targeted him and nearly managed to strike the killing blow. Alex knew that Odd, who had pulled him out of the sword's way in time, was to be thanked for his survival.

"Will you be fine until virtualization?" Aelita asked in the elevator, worried.

"Yeah, I'll survive," Alex said, his eyes empty and desperate. "This reminds me about why I asked you to help me. I don't fare alone."  
"Well, luckily we're on your side," Odd remarked. "We'll defeat Serafina for sure."

"True," Jeremy said. "If we do as well as yesterday, our chances are very good."

Alex forced himself to smile.

"Thank you," he said and forced himself to swallow the tears of affection and pain. He was truly happy that he had found such fantastic comrades and friends.

Jeremy's phone rang.

"Yes, Yumi?" Einstein answered.

"Jeremy, that sword-carrying creature is here," Yumi's voice whispered.

"What?!" Jeremy cried out.

"What now?" Ulrich asked, worried.

"That creature is at Yumi's place," Jeremy answered.

"No!" William breathed. "Is Yumi ok?"

"Me and my folks are fine yet, Hiroki is with Johnny today. We're hiding, but I don't know when that creature gets inside," Yumi whispered.

"Alright, hang in there, we'll deactivate the tower as soon as we can," Jeremy said. Yumi ended the call upon hearing some noise.

"Someone has to go to help her," Aelita said.

"I'll go," Ulrich and William both said and turned to look at one another right upon hearing the other say the same words.

"We can't send you both to help Yumi. Anything can wait on Lyoko," Jeremy said. "Which one of you goes?"

William and Ulrich stared each other into the eyes. Which one would go to Yumi's place? They both understood that the competition between them had begun again now that the inflamed relations had started to mend. The elevator stopped and opened.

"Let's see what the situation is on Lyoko and decide on it," William suggested.

"Fine," Ulrich said. They stood into the lab and went to the supercomputer to see what was shown on the screen.

"Serafina and the others, three Tarantulas," Jeremy listed and bit his lip. "You both would be needed here."

Alex looked at William and Ulrich. He wanted to get this decision done quickly, but he did not want to cause additional friction between the two now that they had seemed to get along so well in the previous evening either.

"One of you must come," Aelita said. "At least."

"Yumi can't be left to the mercy of that creature alone," Ulrich said. William looked at the screen and thought heavily. The longer they took to decide, the longer Yumi would be in danger. He decided to resolve the situation.

"Ulrich, go help Yumi," he said.

"Huh?" Ulrich yelped, astounded.

"You heard me," William said, walking towards the elevator. "Alex, Aelita, Odd, we have to hurry." At the elevator's door he looked at the others. "The longer we hesitate, the longer Yumi is in danger. We can't afford bickering."

"William is right. Just go, Ulrich, and be careful," Alex said, relieved that this had not become a fight.

"All right," Ulrich said, solemn. "Good luck." He hurried to the ladders and started to climb up; he would get to go faster that way than with the elevator which he would first have wait for. Aelita, Odd and Alex followed William to the elevator and to the scanner room.

"I didn't expect that you'd decide to help us and not Yumi," Odd remarked.

"I am helping Yumi," William noted. "Ulrich can do nothing but keep the creature from hurting her. Aelita is the only one who can stop it through Lyoko. When I help with stopping the creature on Lyoko, I am helping Yumi."

"Indeed," Aelita said while stepping into the scanner. "We would need Ulrich on Lyoko too, though. We're numerically disadvantaged."

"The Tarantulas have to be taken out first," Odd said. "When they've been dealt with, we can concentrate on the main meal properly."

"Alex and Odd, I'll virtualize you first. Be ready," Jeremy said. "The Overboard and the Overwing are waiting for you there already, so set off right away."

"All right, Einstein," Odd said and stepped into the scanner. Alex did the same without saying anything.

"Transfer odd, transfer Alex, scanner Odd, scanner Alex, virtualization!" Jeremy put out the commands. "Aelita and William, your turn."

"Let's go then," William noted, solemn while stepping into the scanner. They had to succeed, or things could go badly for Yumi. He did not want to let the creature harm the girl he loved, so he hoped that Ulrich could buy them enough time to deactivate the tower.

"Transfer Aelita, transfer William, scanner Aelita, scanner William, virtualization!"

William did not let himself fall all the way to the ground but shifted straight to Super Smoke from the air. Aelita had the time to see that and opened her wings, leaving the Overwing in place. They went right after Odd and Alex, who were going ahead. There was no time to lose.

Yumi breathes as silently as possible. Someone walked near the cleaning closet. It could very well be the creature Serafina's attack had created. Her parents held onto each other, fearful.

A sword penetrated the door, scraping a long wound to Yumi's back, and Yumi's mother could not help shouting when her daughter cried out and slumped on her knees. The sword detached and prepared for another strike, but it never got to its destination, as a cry and the following hard slam implied that someone had pushed it away. Yumi could not tell if the helper was Ulrich or William, and at that moment it did not matter to her. Whichever it was, that did not matter, as long as he would not hurt himself at least severely.

Another cry was heard. Now Yumi recognized it to be Ulrich's voice. A metallic clank. The creature had hit something else than Ulrich.

 _Hurry up_ , Yumi prayed the ones on Lyoko in her mind.

William saw the tarantulas and stopped, returning to his human form. Alex looked at him in confusion when the others stopped too.

"I'll take care of those Tarantulas. You concentrate on Serafina and the others," William said.

"Are you sure you can deal with all of those three?" Alex asked, worried.

"Hopefully," William noted. "If you get a good spot, go ahead and shoot them for me, but since they need to be taken care of fast without ignoring the other enemies, I'll take of them. I get to attach each of them with Super Smoke fast and right after that to help you."

"I agree," Aelita said.

"Let's do that," Alex said.

"Yeah," Odd said. "For Yumi!"

"For Yumi," William affirmed and returned to Super Smoke. He hurried ahead of the others to be able to attack the Tarantulas right away. Serafina, Alicia, Lyra and Dan prepared for the attack, but upon seeing William heading towards the Tarantulas they turned their arrows at the others and shot. Aelita ascended higher to avoid hits and Odd covered her with his shield and, when needed, with himself and even his vehicle. Alex sped straight at the enemies with his machete ready. He did not mind the Tarantulas which concentrated on William, who was now losing his life points. Apparently, he had gotten hit and fumbled with controlling Super Smoke. However, Alex knew that William would not get hurt if he was devirtualized, so he concentrated on his own target.

Odd shot laser arrows at the Tarantulas and thus got William a moment long enough to recover the control of Super Smoke and lunge at the last Tarantula. Odd, however, decided to take care of it, but at the same time he made the mistake of ignoring Lyra. The blonde girl shot him off his Overboard into devirtualization with a grin on her face.

William hurried to attack Lyra and Dan to give Aelita the needed additional seconds to get to the tower. Something in him said that they were in a hurry now.

Metal clanked against metal. Ulrich breathed in through his teeth when the violent blows shook his wounded shoulder painfully. In addition to that, his body was starting to tire in this tough struggle.

"Hurry up," he muttered even though he knew that Aelita and the others did not hear him. Yumi glimpsed the situation cautiously through the slit of the cleaning closet's door, seeing how bad a condition the walls were in now. Moreover, she saw Ulrich's wounds. They would need a Return to the Past.

Yumi took her phone and called Jeremy again, "Jeremy, what's the situation on Lyoko? Ulrich won't hold up much longer."

"Aelita is in the tower soon. Hang in there," Jeremy answered. "What's the situation?"

"Ulrich and I have both gotten hits from the sword and my home isn't in a terribly pretty condition. We need a Return to the Past necessarily." Yumi felt her legs shake. She felt dizzy; did the sword do something else than just wounding?

"I understand. I'll prepare the Return to the Past ready," Jeremy declared.

"Good, thanks," Yumi said and hung up. Ulrich cried out when the blade got past his defense to scratch a flesh wound to his cheek. Yumi tried to stay silent so that she would not draw the creature's attention to herself. _Please be quick._

Alicia hurled Alex further away and Serafina attacked William, giving Lyra a chance to take some distance and shoot. Serafina took her steel arrow and attacked, aiming at William's arms and sides with swift jabs. Only now William understood just how bad a situation he ended up into because of his sword; it was far too heavy to be controlled in such fast situations. He noticed he was retreating further away from Alex, who had now moved to attack Dan, who was covered by Alicia. With a machete in his hand he could shield himself from Lyra's attacks and slash his animal-shaped opponents. If he only got to hit Alicia, this would be over. Lyra and Dan could do nothing to him and William without their leader.

The picture of a saved world gleamed in his eyes when he attacked even more aggressively.

"Give up, sis!" he shouted. "You can't win this!"

"I am not your sister!" Lyra shouted. "Believe it already, idiot!"

"You've been brainwashed!" Alex shouted. "Lyra, you have to remember! You have to remember me! You have to fight against the wrong memories! They're just lies that Serafina has fed you!"

"Shut up already, I don't want to hear your claptrap!" Lyra shouted, shooting three arrows at her enemy. She did not stand how Alex insisted that same thing to her each time. When the effects of the hypnosis had faded, she had been able to remember how Alex had tried to convince her of it through the hypnosis.

Alex sighed, frustrated. It seemed that he could not turn Lyra's head anymore. Serafina's influence was too strong. Who knew what the girl had done to her, he pondered. He could not even imagine such a way to corrupt another person.

He could do nothing but fight more firmly and dodge the arrows. This fight had to be ended and fast.

William tried to get his sword under control to be able to hit Serafina with it. It was not an easy thing when he tried to dodge the vile jabs at the same time. Serafina's eyes were fierce and now William could see the person Alex had described to them. The wickedness seemed to radiate from the stabs that became more and more furious as they did not hit their target.

William did not turn a hair almost at all about Lyoko's monsters, but when the monster had taken the form of a human, he admitted to himself that he was afraid. Out of the monsters, only the Scyphozoa could capture him and truly harm him, but Serafina had the intelligence and understanding of a human. She could capture him and keep him well imprisoned easily by manipulation, threatening, extortion and violence especially now that she had gotten backup. If William got imprisoned again, he could not escape by any means.

When these thoughts came to his mind, he started to suspect if exchanging Lyra and Dan for Aelita had been such a good idea after all.

Serafina pushed the sword, the sudden lateral movement of which made William sway off balance. William could only see the hit coming at his face and feel a sting in his side. Next, he noticed that he was slumping to his rear in the scanner. Then white covered his view and he found himself laying on his bed.

Before the white came, he barely had time to understand Odd's comment, "Congratulations, your first devirtualization."

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	13. Part 12: Wrath

When William met the others at the cafeteria, no one was hurt anymore. The Return to the Past was still a very unfamiliar thing to him, so he was slightly confused when so many things happened again. Only the Lyoko Warriors knew what had happened before the Return. The others just acted like nothing had happened, because in their memories nothing had happened yet.

"Is everything ok?" William asked while sitting down at the table. "Is the tower inactive now?"

"It is," Jeremy answered. "Well done."

"Yumi is ok," Ulrich told William. He sought out the words and forced himself to say them, "Thank you for letting me go help her."

William looked at him, astounded. This he had not really expected.

"Don't mention it," he said, trying to fathom what he had just heard. It felt so absurd after all the competition.

"It's nice that you get along," Alex said, his eyes twinkling. "I was afraid that this situation would cause some trouble."

"You said that we have to cooperate and be friends with each other," Ulrich noted and bit a piece of bread. "I didn't consider losing or prolonging this battle just because I couldn't work with someone as a Lyoko Warrior. We can argue nevertheless when Serafina's gone."

"Good approach," Jeremy said. The others nodded as well.

"I don't know what happened at Yumi's place, but I have a feeling that you might've fared better on Lyoko than I did," William noted honestly. "Serafina was far too quick compared to how well and fast I could move my sword. I got beaten quite giftedly."

"You just need practice. It'll become easier from there," Aelita said.

"How did Serafina attack?" Ulrich asked, interested.

"She tried to stab my arms and sides with steel arrows fast. I could barely even stave her off," William told.

"Did you use Super Smoke to help you?" Ulrich asked.

"I didn't have time. It still requires too much thinking," William answered.

"Then you need to practice using it until you control it," Ulrich remarked neutrally. "It won't get easier otherwise."

"Yeah," William said.

He was grateful that Ulrich did not bully him because of his incompetence but advised him instead. He did not know it, but Alex was grateful of it too; the message had been understood in one go. The gap between William and the other Lyoko Warriors had narrowed at a terrific speed and you could see from the former Xana Warrior that he now felt welcome and belonging in the group. The wounds left by X.A.N.A. had started to heal little by little. The healing would still take a lot of time, but the direction was right and the pace was better than expected.

Yumi returned to the lessons normally. She was completely safe and sound which William was relieved about. Sure, he had gotten the information from Ulrich and believed it, but it was a totally different thing to see it with your own eyes than hear it from someone else's mouth.

Only part of William was surprised when Yumi asked, "What do you think about this situation? Do you have any suspicions regarding Alex?"

"The fact that his description of Serafina doesn't match my and Aelita's experiences is suspicious," William said. "But Serafina might as well act against that description on purpose. Do you have some suspicions?"

"Something's wrong. We don't know something," Yumi said. "It just doesn't make sense that Serafina acts so impeccably against Alex's description. Someone's tricking us."

"Most likely Serafina," William said. "Alex has looked suspicious to me, but I still don't want to believe that he's a fraud and the real bad guy. If he was, why doesn't Serafina just come and show it to us?"

"That is true. But I'll rather keep my eyes open about both of them. Someone's the bad guy anyway," Yumi noted. "Before we get the certainty of which one is the bad guy one, I think we'd better be careful."

"You're right," William remarked. "This isn't as clear as the fight against X.A.N.A. yet. But it'll become clearer for sure."

Serafina stared at the screen.

"It moved badly. Did it avoid the factory?" Lyra wondered. "Actually, what was that creature anyway?"

"Something that should've done away with Alex, but no. It had the perfect opportunity and it screwed it up," Serafina grunted. "It needs to be developed still."

"It could've killed William," Alicia noted, preening her feathers, ill at ease. "This attack was lousy."

"We need to think over better next time," Dan noted.

A few days later, a new attack started, this time at nightfall on the Desert Sector. The same sword creature appeared and now it followed Alex all the way to the factory. However, this time the group knew to watch out, so they managed to get on Lyoko with mere scratches. Jeremy escaped the lab as soon as the group had been virtualized only to notice that the creature stayed to wait for Alex in the scanner room. Therefore, he returned to the supercomputer and saw that the creature still stayed there.

"The creature is waiting at the scanners. Be ready to run if you get devirtualized," Jeremy told, worried.

"Oh dear," Alex said. "This isn't a good thing."

"We have to be very careful now," Odd noted, strangely serious. "Einstein, what's on offer?"

"The familiar quartet, Hornets, Tarantulas and Crabs," Jeremy told. "A killing committee."

"So, we have to be very, very careful," Alex said.

"Yup," Ulrich said. "I'll take on Serafina. Let's see how well I fare against her. Alex, you attack the monsters. You're the target so you mustn't get devirtualized."

"Right," Alex said, gulping. He still remembered how the sword creature had hit his shoulder. "This won't be easy."

"William, can you shield Alex from lasers with your sword?" Aelita asked.

"I can at least try," William answered.

"I'll be fine," Alex said hastily. "I have a machete with which to block the lasers."

"I can help," William said, surprised of Alex's reaction.

"I know, but I don't want to be helpless. After all, I have gotten this far all the same, so I don't want to hide behind anyone's back now either," Alex explained. "I asked you to help, not to be my shields."

"We understand, but you taking risks for nothing doesn't help either," Yumi noted. "We don't know Serafina and her operation as well as you do, so we'd remain with poorer knowledge if you died. Then Serafina could well surprise us and also destroy us."

"Yumi's right," Ulrich remarked. "Protecting you from the creature Serafina has created is just as important as deactivating the tower. We have to be able to defend in addition to attacking when needed."

"True," William noted. "Serafina has defeated us here on Lyoko when she's had the defense advantage. We have to be able to do the same.

"Well fine. If you insist," Alex said. "But I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not. I had to be protected, too, back when I hadn't been materialized yet," Aelita pointed out. "And long after that as well because I had to be materialized with Code Earth in a tower."

"Good point!" Odd remarked.

"Listen, just as nice as it's to talk, please go towards the tower already. That creature probably won't wait there forever," Jeremy said, nervous.

"Right, true. Sorry, Jeremy," Alex said. "Let's go."

They set out and Jeremy monitored incessantly the surveillance camera's footage of the scanner room. The creature waited in the middle of the room, motionless for the time being.

Serafina, Alicia, Lyra and Dan waited for their enemies. They would now come in full numbers, ready to fight.

"Ready to shoot," Serafina told, taking her arrow ready. The monsters charged their lasers, preparing for an attack.

"Fire," Lyra commanded when the Lyoko Warriors were close enough. Serafina would have let the group come even closer but she did not complain. Lyra had a say as well. Ulrich and Yumi fell off their vehicles but Odd managed to dodge the lasers with his Overboard. Alex held tight on his purple-attired comrade's shoulders hoping that he would not fall off his wild ride. He was not a fan of speed in such an open vehicle.

William moved to Odd's side, sword ready to receive the attacks. Ulrich dashed towards Serafina with Supersprint, dodging arrows. Aelita and Yumi stayed behind to attack from farther away. Yumi strewed loose stones towards the monsters with her Telekinesis when she got an open spot for it.

Odd left Alex behind a boulder and then sped to attack Lyra and Dan. Lyra shot an arrow to the Overboard and Odd jumped off it, ending up close enough to the girl to fling her bow away and fight by hand. Dan's quick attempts at nipping life points from him made Odd jump in every direction while he noticed that he had ended up boxing with a girl of his own height. Alicia wanted to help Lyra, but it was too risky to leave Serafina to fight the swift Ulrich alone.

Alex shot arrows at the Tarantulas whenever he got a proper moment. William deflected the lasers away with his sword, trying to control his weapon more smoothly and faster at the same time. One Crab's laser hit him in the chest, and he fell on his back from the blow's force.

"William!" Alex cried out and out of slackening shot past a Hornet which he could have destroyed otherwise. "William, are you ok?"

"Ouch," William breathed. The final Tarantula's lasers swished right above him. Soon, they would descend to his legs' level and devirtualize him.

"Get away from there, quickly!" Alex exclaimed. William groaned while trying to reach Super Smoke before his sense of balance would get back up to date. Dazed, he did not completely perceive which position he was in. Alex took a risk, stepped forth and shot an arrow at the Tarantula. Two lasers hit him.

"Alex, watch out! You're running out of life points!" Jeremy cried out. The creature now stepped closer to one scanner, expecting its target to appear from there soon.

William grabbed his sword quickly and raised it to cover Alex, who had fallen on his rear. The Tarantula's final lasers bounced away and William could get up. He also felt Alex lifting him up.

"Quickly, before the Crabs attack," Alex said and partly dragged his comrade behind the boulder to recover to the end. "Are you ok?"

"It's okay, the blow just knocked the air out," William answered. "I'm a bit dizzy, nothing else."

"Just take it easy there," Yumi said, having run to them. She had come to be ready to shield Alex if William would get devirtualized. Aelita landed next to Alex. "We'll take care of the rest."

"Thanks," Alex said. "Thank you all."

"Don't thank us yet," Yumi said. "There still are monsters."

Right away, a Hornet appeared to them and spat venom on Yumi. Aelita shot the monster, but it was already too late to save Yumi. She was devirtualized. Jeremy gasped, following in horror how the creature would react to Yumi this time.

It turned out that it just shoved Yumi aside when she came close enough. The Japanese girl already knew from experience that one did not mess with that creature and ran to the elevator quickly. The creature did not follow her even there, let alone to the lab.

"Are you ok?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah. I might get a bruise for that shove but nothing dangerous," Yumi said. "It's clearly aiming at only Alex now."

"That's nice," Alex said.

William stepped over the venom and watched how Ulrich and Odd were doing. He could not attack from this distance in any way. The Crabs could not hit them from their shooting angle of that time either, so he had nothing to do. He swung his sword to the ground from his shoulder and watched in surprise when a strange white wave left from the sword towards Ulrich.

"Ulrich, watch out!" he cried out. Ulrich did not know what was coming, so he dodged to the right. Alicia let out a roar and leaped to the opposite direction. Serafina saw what was coming and charged towards Ulrich, attempting to drive him to the shockwave sent by William. Ulrich managed to avoid the hit, but Odd was not as lucky. The shockwave hit him straight and cleanly, hurling him back to the scanners and to escape the creature which did not cut him either.

"Einstein, what was that?" he shouted while climbing the ladders.

"I don't know. William, what happened?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know, some strange wave just left from my sword and it hit Odd," William told, shocked. "I'm sorry!"

"Well no wonder then!" Odd exclaimed. "It wiped me out right away!"

"I'm sorry," William apologized again.

"No worries. You aren't the first one who has accidentally devirtualized me, right, Princess?" Odd noted.

"True. It happens even to the best of us," Aelita said. "It's not the end of the world." She shot the final Energy field at a Crab and took off towards the tower. Lyra, who had gotten her hands free, retrieved her bow and shot Ulrich back to the factory. Now the quartet turned their eyes to Alex and William.

"Y'know, now would be a good time to toss another one like that," Alex remarked while he drew his bow. Serafina shot an arrow which Alex had to dodge.

"I don't even know how I did it!" William cried out. He tried to replicate the movement with which he had generated the shockwave, but it was of no use.

"Well, then plan B. Let's attack then. Aelita will deactivate the tower soon," Alex said.

"Fine," William said. They set out, running, shouting in unison, "Geronimooo!"

Serafina took her steel arrow and jumped towards William. This time William was ready for it and dodged the girl's attack with Super Smoke. Alex moved on towards Lyra.

"Lyra, this doesn't have to go like this!" he shouted.

"For the last time, I am not your sister!" Lyra roared and tried to hit Alex, who dodged the blow. Alicia and Dan defended their comrade just as fiercely. At the same time, William used his sword to block the jabs of the steel arrow which he would not survive if they got to their destination.

Serafina attacked from the right. William swung his sword to be able to drive the girl back further away but instead ended up cutting the steel arrow in half. He barely felt any resistance in his sword. The other end of the arrow fell to the ground and the other half remained in the hand of the shocked Serafina.

"That's it," William breathed. The fight had come to its end! He raised his sword to the ending attack. "It's over!"

A blind wrath emerged onto Serafina's face when she raised her eyes from the broken arrow to William. The girl let out a bloodcurdling holler and suddenly attacked, unafraid of the sword's blade. William did not even have the time to react to it otherwise than by shouting before he noticed he was on his stomach, the other hand badly bent in Serafina's grip. He thanked his luck that the sense of pain was much weaker on Lyoko than on Earth.

"William!" Alex cried out. He turned quickly and rushed towards Serafina to help his comrade. Lyra shot him in the back. Alex noticed that he was starting to devirtualize from the hit.

"Escape with Super Smoke!" Alex shouted while disappearing.

"I'm trying!" William shouted; he tried to reach the use of Super Smoke from his seized-up mind. "Alex?"

"Already gone," Serafina said.

William heard a tiger's growling from the right now; Alicia circled before him. William saw his sword and reached for it with his straight hand. However, Lyra stepped between him and the sword, grabbing the sword's hilt. Then the girl tried to lift it, grunting, and even got to barely haul the sword further away from its user.

William watched, helpless, the sword's blade's grating-sounding hauling away. He could not think about anything.

"William, can you get away from there?" Jeremy asked, preparing to materialize William if needed.

"I... I don't know," William answered. His mind was completely blank now. Everything he had been able to do just a moment ago was now far away. He gasped in horror upon feeling Serafina's knee pressing his upper back. He did not even dare to look at her. He did not want to know what would happen.

"Jeremy, materialize me," he asked, praying that Aelita had gotten into the tower safely.

Jeremy did not have the time to execute the materialization command because Serafina hit William into the neck with an arrow, devirtualizing the boy. William sank on his knees in the scanner, hissing in pain when he felt a sudden shoulder pain radiate from the spot where Serafina had hit him.

"Are you ok?" Odd asked.

"My neck and shoulders hurt," William answered. He tried to turn his head, but it was suddenly terribly difficult. His neck muscles refused to cooperate.

"What happened?" Alex asked. "Did she strike you in the neck?"

"Yeah, she did," William answered, touching the spot where Serafina had struck; it was not sensitive to touch in any way, but it ached strangely. The girl had struck straight into the cervical vertebra with a frightening accuracy.

"Pain after devirtualization is quite normal," Yumi told. "It will pass by."

"What about not being able to move your head properly?" William asked, trying to massage his neck.

"Your muscles probably jammed from the sudden change," Ulrich said. "It has probably happened to each of us over the years. So far, it has always passed."

"Okay," William said. He gave up on his neck and spread his arms since he could not shrug properly, seeing one of the scanners open after Aelita had been materialized. "It'll pass by."

"I can give you a massage if you want," Odd volunteered.

"How about no, Odd," Ulrich stated. "When you gave me a massage when my muscles were jammed after a devirtualization, my back was just even sorer after it."

"But it helped, didn't it?" Odd asked, grinning impishly. "Besides, it was fun!"

"Maybe to you." Ulrich shook his head. "I don't recall enjoying it. And I don't remember that it would've helped me."

Yumi looked at her phone while the boys talked. It was quite late already.

"I have to go home. My parents are waiting," she said.

"Well, I guess we could return to the school. We probably don't have anything to do anymore. Or?" Alex said.

"Not for me," Aelita answered.

"Let's go then," Ulrich said. They went to the elevator, picked Jeremy up and left the factory. They had no idea that when they had left, Serafina had gathered the pieces of her steel arrow and tossed them into the Digital Sea, screaming out of wrath.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	14. Part 13: Friend

Even in the next morning, William felt that his neck was jammed. He could already turn his head a bit, but not much. Perhaps a warm shower will help, he pondered. At least it had sometimes made him feel easier. Perhaps it would help now as well.

Odd and Ulrich were brushing their teeth when William had gotten enough of the shower. It had not been very pleasant when he had not been able to move properly.

"Morning," William greeted his friends.

"Morning," Ulrich replied.

"Morffvinf," Odd replied with a toothbrush in his mouth. "How'f the nefk?"

"It hasn't gotten much better," William answered and started to brush his teeth. "It is a bit better than in the evening but not much."

"My massaging offer is still valid," Odd tipped after taking the toothbrush out of his mouth.

"Well, I think I'll pass. It'll be fine," William answered. "Thanks for the offer, though."

Later, William returned to his room to change his clothes. He was surprised when he heard a knock at his door.

"Come in," he said. Alex peeked from the door.

"Good morning. I decided to come and ask how you were doing," he said.

"Good morning to you too," William greeted. "Come all the way in, don't stay at the door.

Alex smiled and came in, closing the door behind himself.

"And I'm doing fine, nothing else than this neck still. It is a bit better already," William told.

"Okay. I was just worried. And I guess the conscience is knocking too," Alex said. "I fight against Serafina so that she'll never be able to kill anyone's family or friends ever again, but still... it feels like I never get anything done. Everyone Serafina just hurts, everyone dies around me. I'd just want to stop Serafina from hurting anyone anymore, but it feels like I'll never reach that. Everyone just dies and I stay to fight and there will be no end to this."

William frowned. Alex had talked about how Serafina had taken his sister Lyra, killed the rest of the family and the best friend he had ever had. The hopelessness which had driven Alex to seek help from the Lyoko Warriors who defeated X.A.N.A. was a topic that had become familiar as well. Why did Alex start to repeat it now?

"What Serafina did to you on Lyoko yesterday... It stayed in my head," Alex told. "I thought about all those whom Serafina has bumped off through pain. And I started to fear that you'll end up the same way."

"We won't. We will defeat Serafina," William reassured. "If we defeated X.A.N.A., we'll defeat her as well."

Alex felt sad upon hearing the word _we_ in the latter sentence. William had barely been part of destroying X.A.N.A., but now he counted himself among them so strongly that he acted like he had truly been a part of it even before he had been pushed away. On the other hand, it was good, because it indicated that grudges were not held about that time anymore, but on the other hand it was heartbreaking, because it could well be an indication of that William had not accepted being pushed away and therefore acted like he had belonged into the group at that time already.

Alex pushed it out of his mind. It was a different topic.

"I hope so. I've come such a long way here that I don't want to see a single body that belongs to a comrade of mine anymore. On the other hand, I was afraid when Serafina was kind to you and Aelita but now that she brought forth her more familiar behavior, I started to fear even more. Now, she proved to be ready to hurt you and if she's ready to do that, she is ready to kill you as well. I don't want that any of you loses their lives just because I couldn't end this battle alone," Alex explained, on the verge of crying. The thoughts that had circled throughout the night now pushed themselves out with force.

William nodded, understanding. He understood how much this fight stressed Alex, who had so much to do with this fight and so much of it already lost. And William knew that the whole world was in danger as long as Serafina would just keep operating. The girl was as dangerous as X.A.N.A., but also more vulnerable. One proper hit could destroy her while X.A.N.A. itself had been very difficult to hurt when it had gotten into the network – so Jeremy had explained William when he had initially asked about X.A.N.A. after the AI's destruction.

"None of us will die. The others are already experienced, and I get stronger all the time too," William said. "I learn more all the time. You don't need to be afraid for us."

"But I'm terribly afraid!" Alex exclaimed. He bit his teeth together, looked at the floor, squeezing his eyes shut then and tried to swallow his tears. William got up from his bed and walked to his comrade, putting his hands on his shoulders. His shoulders protested the motion, but he did not care about that. Alex had supported him and he wanted to reciprocally support him when he confided in him.

"This battle will end and the only bodies that come anymore will be the bodies of Serafina's gang," William said, believing in his words. Alex tried to look him in the eyes, but when he raised his head and opened his eyes to meet William's eyes, he burst into tears.

Alex cried against William's shoulder for a while. Then he managed to dam the stream of tears that had broken through again and was able to observe his surroundings. He carefully detached himself from William's loose hold and apologized, "S-sorry... I don't tend to break like this..."

"You don't have to apologize," William said calmly. Why on earth had he even doubted this boy? He could not be evil, not with those feelings. Alex's crying was too genuine to be just an act. "I do understand. And I can admit to you that on the worst days after I got free from X.A.N.A., I felt like crying too. I just felt so terrible when friends pushed me away and I had to face the mockery and get to the others' pace at school without anyone who'd support me."

"It must've been terrible," Alex said compassionately and wiped his tears away. He forced himself to smile a little. "Luckily things are better now."

"Yeah," William said. "Now, things are so much better. When you just gave them time, the things got better. I'm sure that'll happen with this as well." He believed in his words out of his undying optimism. With that, he had gotten this far.

"I truly hope so," Alex said. "Thank you for listening to me."

"Don't mention it. It wouldn't have been fair if I hadn't listened to you after all you've done to help me become properly a part of the group," William replied, smiling.

Alex nodded and hesitated for a moment before he opened his mouth again.

"Well... I did think about that neck of yours... I could try to relieve it if you're okay with it. I'm no professional massager, but it sounds like I'm better than Odd," he said, hesitating. He wanted to help but did not know how William would react to his offer.

It turned out that William was downright surprised.

"Well, if you're careful, then it's okay," William said and gave a laugh. "I don't want to get my places mangled. I need them."

"Don't you worry, I'll be careful," Alex said, smiling. He was somewhat shorter than William, so he suggested, "Let's sit down so that I reach better."

"Sure," William replied.

They sat down on William's bed and Alex set his hands on William's shoulders carefully, seeking a good posture.

"Tell me right away if it hurts," Alex said.

"Of course," William replied, calm. Alex's touch was still quite unfamiliar to him, but he trusted his comrade. He had nothing to be afraid of; Alex was a friend, not an enemy, unlike Serafina. Alex had nothing against him nor any bad intents towards him. William could relax his muscles, close his eyes and let Alex act.

The group had had secret conversations about whether or not Alex was truly reliable a couple of times. They all, William also, had suspicions but no proof. Nothing proved Alex's evilness or unreliability. That was exactly why no one wanted Alex to even guess their suspicions, so they acted normally and kept their suspicions in secret from him. However, William now felt convinced that Alex is a friend, now that he had opened up to him. Bad guys did not become stressed from the fate of their tricked comrades nor cried against their shoulders seriously, if they even acted like that, did they? William was convinced that Alex was serious.

Alex started the massage very carefully and it hardly felt like anything at all. He increased the pressure carefully, observing how William reacted. When he did not complain of pain, Alex moved to massage the area where Serafina had struck the arrow. He felt William's spine and was careful with it.

"It sure is a great blessing that we face Serafina on Lyoko," he said. "If that yesterday's incident had happened here on Earth, you would've died. She would've definitely snapped your spine with that strike of an arrow. Or if you'd somehow survived it, then you'd probably be paralyzed now.

William swallowed. The matter had been on his mind as well.

"She was very precise," he said.

"I know. She's practiced with very many," Alex said and trembled. "At this point, she probably knows exactly where each part of the body breaks and which part is more sensitive than some other. Poor people."

William trembled out of the mere idea. He did not want to even know how many Serafina had hurt and how many had died in the girl's hands. The number was said to be terribly high.

"Let's not talk about it now," Alex said. "Let's talk about something nicer. It's apparently a fine weather today, after all, so why ruin it with unpleasant talks like this?"

"You're right," William noted. "For a change, it's sunny."

They ended up talking about video games. Alex, who had naturally not had time to play them, was very interested to heard about William's gaming experiences. Some hobby Alex would have to come up with for himself when Serafina would be gone, after all. When Alex stopped massaging, William noticed that he could move his head more easily.

"That actually helped!" he noted, delighted. "Thanks, Alex!"

"No problem. Great that I could help!" Alex said, smiling. The joy from helping William wiped the bad feeling caused by stress away at least for a while.

When they went to the cafeteria to join the others for breakfast, still talking happily, our two friends had no idea that Serafina knew what was going on.

"This'll be interesting," the black-haired girl said to herself. "Let's put this situation into a test then..."

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	15. Part 14: When the Routine Fails

William sat next to Yumi on the visual arts lesson. Yumi was working but William stared at a blank paper. The topic of this task was fear.

"Everything ok?" Yumi asked, worried.

"I don't know how I could draw my fear," William answered.

"Just draw a spider," Yumi remarked.

"It's not... It's not such a big deal anymore," William said. Yumi raised one of her eyebrows, puzzled, so William explained, "I've come across scarier things since then."

"Serafina?" Yumi asked.

"No," William answered. "Or, well, she is scarier, too, but not so much scarier..."

Yumi frowned; she did not understand. She did not have the time to ask either, when the teacher came to interrupt, "William, do you have a problem with your drawing?"

"I don't know how I could draw it," William answered. "It's... kinda an abstract thing."

"Think of what is related to it, for example. What places, what items, creatures," the teacher advised. "Anything that's related to it. If you cannot come up with anything else, depict them and their relation to you."

"Okay, thanks," William said. Something came to his mind immediately, but could he draw it?

The teacher moved to look for the next student to be helped. William pondered heavily. He would be able to draw the image drawn in his mind somehow – he had, after all, emptied his recollections of Lyoko on paper as drawings every so often – but could he do it? After all, no one but a Lyoko Warrior would understand what it was about, and he could always explain everyone else that it was symbolic. He could very well build up some story about a squid and explain something weird with it.

But did he really want to think about it? Did he want to seek out his most frightening memory and depict them so that the others would see it too?

 _Did_ he _want_ others to see what he was truly afraid of?

"Argh, let's just draw that spider then," he grumbled to himself, ignoring Yumi's surprised look and searched the most hideous picture of a spider he could find online with his phone. It was extremely hideous to look at, but William knew he could take it. If he had persevered Xanafication, he would stand to look at and draw a spider which he perceived only as a picture. It would not materialize from his phone or drawing just like that. It could not harm him in any way.

Besides, spiders could not harm him, William did know that. Yet he was still afraid of them even though he did not know why. That fear seemed to come from somewhere very deep where he could not reach with his mind.

After the lesson, Yumi used the clamor to her advantage and asked, "What we're you going to draw instead of a spider?"

"It's related to Lyoko," William answered. "I decided that I won't take any risks regarding it. It still has to be kept a secret, after all."

"Okay," Yumi replied. If it was not Serafina but had something to do with Lyoko, could X.A.N.A. be in question? The girl decided against questioning. After all, it was William's own and even quite personal matter which he had the right to say nothing about.

Later that day, Serafina sent out an attack when the group had scattered after the end of the school day. The girl had not attacked for a week, so the group was not in a departure and combat readiness upon the Superscanner's alarm.

William was alone in the park, doing homework. After Xanafication, he had started to like the peacefulness of the park where no one came to make fun of him, and he had not yet completely unlearned his habit to go there to study. In addition to that, the dormitory could be very noisy in the daytime, which disrupted his concentration when it was at its worst. Or then he had just become more sensitive to noise because of his Xanafication. He had been in silence for multiple months and suddenly he had popped back into the human world which was noisier than he had remembered.

In fact, he was not even completely sure if he had become more sensitive to almost everything after X.A.N.A. had possessed him. Even though he was practically still a normal teenager – if Lyoko Warriorhood was not taken into account – something X.A.N.A. had changed. Some trace of Lyoko's incidents had remained in him even though William felt like it only showed on Lyoko.

The notification sound startled William from his ponderings. He took his phone out and viewed the text message he had gotten. Jeremy notified of Serafina's attack.

"Can't one even study in peace here?" William grumbled, put his phone into his pocked and gathered his belongings together into his bag. Then he left towards the manhole he had become familiar with.

He did not have the time to pass more than just a few trees.

Aelita, Jeremy and Odd faced the sword creature at the manhole. It blocked their way by standing on the cover.

"What do we do now?" Aelita asked. "It will most certainly not let us through."

"Uh, hey, creature, Alex isn't with us. Why don't you go look for him?" Jeremy tried.

"That's fair," Odd blurted.

"We have to get to the factory and we're acting on the assumption that this creature is after Alex," Jeremy noted. The sword creature did not even budge. "Maybe we should try to go around."

Odd picked up a big branch which had fallen to the ground during the previous day's storm.

"Shall we fight, sword creature?" he challenged.

"Odd, careful!" Aelita warned.

To their surprise, the creature shook its topmost part of its "body" which somewhat seemed like a head.

"What, are you afraid of Odd the Great?" Odd asked, grinning. The creature shook its "head" again. "Well why don't you let us go through here, then?" The creature "shrugged".

Odd scoffed. "Well you're helpful!" The creature "nodded" now. Odd raised his branch and hit the creature with it. The creature started to pixelize and disintegrate immediately. Then it exploded into digital dust. Jeremy took a look at the Superscanner. The tower was deactivated.

"That was easy!" Odd exclaimed, amazed by his own powers. "I'm a superhero!"

"There must be something wrong with Serafina's coding. Maybe next time when the tower is deactivated we could catch this creature's files before deactivation," Jeremy remarked. "We could understand that creature better if we got the codes into our hands."

"Serafina will probably fix that weakness to hits now that it emerged," Aelita noted.

"If she can," Jeremy added.

"So, in other words, next time we see that thing, we'll hit it. Good," Odd said.

"I don't recommend it before we know if it'll work on the next times anymore," Jeremy warned. He took his phone out. "Well, now that the attack is over, let's notify the others."

The messages reached their destinations. Alex came out of his hiding place, relieved, Ulrich slowed his writing pace down and Yumi ended the squabble with Hiroki about when she could get to go "to the city". William's phone did receive Jeremy's text message about the attack's abortion but the boy himself did not see the message.

He was already far elsewhere at that point...

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	16. Part 15: The Abduction

William felt that he was in a strange position and movement. The swaying motion made him feel ill. He noticed that his hair and clothes were slightly wet as if he had been in water a while ago.

Actually... his clothes did feel strange. They were skintight. And where was his coat? Upon cracking his eyes, William made out a spiky armor on his wrist. That was when he understood what this was about.

 _He was on Lyoko!_

William swung his body to get out of the strange movement. He felt the grassy ground upon dropping on his side and heard an exclamation uttered by a familiar voice. The voice belonged to Serafina. William got up fast and ran past the horse next to him. He heard a thump from where he had just been and tried to seek Super Smoke out, again with poor success. He was in a forest denser than that of the park, so he had to be in Serafina's base.

Spikes!

William jumped aside quickly to avoid hitting them.

More spikes!

William turned more to the left to dodge them. Perhaps he could go around Serafina and escape back to Lyoko.

A wolf!

William stopped, terrified. It stared at him and then raised its head upright, howling. It was Dan!

William turned and ran away. Now a tiger's roar came from behind him on the right. Alicia was after him too!

The earth disappeared from in front of him!

William jumped desperately and got a grip on the opposite edge. He pulled himself up as fast as he could, hearing multiple running steps from behind him from various directions.

As soon as he got his knees back on earth, he started running again. Before that, he managed to see a glimpse of Dan.

"Catch him!" Serafina shouted. William heard her voice loud and clear and tightened the pace in desperation. He did not want to get caught! He _had to_ not get caught!

William sought out Super Smoke but could not use it properly in his panic. The motion was very uneven, imperfect and rough, not to mention slow! William had no other choice but run on foot and hope that he could escape his chasers.

There seemed to be enough spikes to stop him, but he managed to dodge them all. Then the forest ended and a hill with a mountain on top began. William did not know where else to head, so he ran higher. Perhaps he could escape through the mountain like Serafina had when the others had come to free him from captivity.

Dan's howling came from very close behind William now. William forced his muscles that were screaming out of the exertion to move him even faster even though his lungs and legs were burning from the labor which he forced his body to while escaping his enemies' chase.

Dan's growl came only just a couple of meters away now!

Right after noticing it, William felt an impact on his upper back and fell flat on the grass by its force. The growl came right above his neck and William understood that the weight which had come on his upper was Dan's. A tiger's roar came from the right behind him. William did not dare to move his head even when he heard human footsteps from the left.  
"Excellent work." The voice was Lyra's. The girl shouted somewhere further away, "We got him!"

William kept his eyes closed and breathed the scent of the grass. He prayed that this was just a nightmare. He would wake up soon and notice that he was in the park. He had just fallen asleep at the eternally boring chemistry book and saw a nightmare now since his subconsciousness did not seem to come up with anything else. _I'm just in a dream, I'm just in a dream_ , William repeated to himself. His subconsciousness would believe it shortly and he would wake up. This would soon be over, very soon.  
"Great. This went better than I expected," Serafina said, slightly out of breath. "Let's take him all the way to the end."

Dan's weight lightened.  
"Hey, William, get up so that you get to move again," Serafina said, calm and now closer. Still believing this to be a nightmare, William shook his head. He did not raise his face from the grass nor opened his eyes.  
"You don't want to move?" Serafina asked. William shook his head. This was just a nightmare, this quartet could not hurt him in any way. He was safe. This was just a dream.  
"Well fine, don't move with your own strength then," Serafina noted.

William felt the girl's arms entwine around him and lifting him up. Other, far bigger and stronger arms grabbed him from his left, locking his arms to his sides, whereupon Serafina's arms released their grip. William opened his eyes and watched, helpless, as the mountain and the mouth of the cave came closer inevitably. He looked at his carrier; it was a gorilla. The tiger trotted to the cave after Lyra and after a while after it had disappeared William felt how his powers were torn away from him once again.  
 _How did I even end up here?_ William wanted to ask it aloud, but he wanted to let his breathing become steady first. The lactic acid started to disappear from his legs already, but he still did not want to move. His legs shook out of the exertion turned futile.

William tried to seek the bravery he had had when he had acted against X.A.N.A. either in real life or in his dreams of his memories. He did remember how it had felt but all that power and self-confidence was lost now. He knew that he was now completely disadvantaged, and no bravery, power nor self-confidence would save him now.

He knew that he would not be allowed to escape.

"Have you seen William?" I was supposed to help him rehearse Italian before the test," Odd asked.  
"I haven't seen him since the last break," Ulrich noted.  
"Could he be in the park?" Aelita suggested. "He's used to studying there quite a lot."

When the battle against X.A.N.A. had ended, Aelita had gathered her courage and gone to talk with William every so often before he had gotten back into the group. He had told her that he preferably studied right in the park because of its peacefulness. Aelita had been unable to forget how sad William's eyes had been behind the brave smile when the boy had told about the fact for the first time. That had actually been already before X.A.N.A.'s destruction and exactly that conversation and sight had put Aelita on the stand that there was no point in hating William for what had happened. Aelita knew of the derision and understood that even without the Lyoko Warriors themselves William paid a severe price for the mistake he made even after being freed.  
"Why don't you just call him and ask where he is?" Jeremy suggested.  
"Right, good idea, Einstein!" Odd noted. He took his phone out and typed William's number. "He doesn't pick up."  
"That's strange," Alex said. "Has something happened to him?"  
"You'd think that no. That creature was very passive. As if it would've only wanted to prevent us from getting to the factory," Aelita noted, worried. "Perhaps it'd be for the best to check where he is."  
"I'll take care of that," Jeremy said. He went to the nearest bench, took out his laptop and tried to locate William's phone. However, its signal was not found.  
"Aelita, did you say that the creature just wanted to keep you from getting to the factory?" Alex asked, suddenly fearing for the worst.  
"Yes," Aelita answered. "What about it?"  
"What if its purpose in fact was to prevent you from getting to the factory?" Alex asked. He paled upon beginning to understand what might have happened. "In the name of the world, no, it can't be... Let's go to the factory right now!" He started running. The others realized what Alex might have in his mind and they followed him.

Dan pushed William deeper into the cave and turned into a wolf again. William stumbled in the sudden movement and fell. He rolled for a brief moment until his movement stopped on his left side to a foot that came against his back. William turned his head and saw Lyra straight next to him with an arrow in her hand. The girl squinted. William started to subconsciously make himself smaller hoping that the sharp-looking arrow was a mere deterrent.

When Lyra crouched and kept the arrow near William's shoulder, William started to fear that his wish was futile.  
"You know, you should've thought more carefully when you picked your side," Lyra said. Malice and hatred radiated from the girl's gaze and voice.  
"Lyra, let him be." Serafina's voice came from the mouth of the cave. The duo turned to look at her. The girl came deeper into the cave while the thorn bush fence grew fast, blocking the way. Alicia flew off to the fence as a hawk.  
"Why? This would be a good warning about what'll start to happen if you're friends with Alex," Lyra noted. "Perhaps we'd get the guy himself dragged here when the people start to fear. And besides, that's what you get when you're friends with someone who does so much bad!"

Now, William felt the arrowhead move on the top of his upper arm. He looked at Serafina, terrified. It felt like she was the only one who could save him from arrowhead treatment even though it could later lead to an even worse treatment at the hands of the black-haired girl herself.  
"Is it right to punish William for what Alex has done?" Serafina asked.  
"Yes," Lyra answered. "He's in the same camp!"  
"Does being in the same group make him responsible for what his fellows have done before he joined them?" Serafina asked.  
"Well, he isn't directly responsible, but he's still involved in that!" Lyra remarked, angry. She started to unnerve at Serafina's questions.  
"Should I be punished for what our friends have done, then?" Serafina asked. "For instance, when Jade stole apples from a neighbor's apple tree. We were in his 'camp' and even made sure that he wouldn't get caught. We weren't responsible for what he did, but we still were in his group. Should I or you be punished for that, for example?"  
"No," Lyra said immediately.  
"Then why should William be punished for something he wasn't even a part of?" Serafina asked. "Lyra, I know that you don't want to let Alex get away with what he's done but we mustn't sink to his level and take our hatred out on an innocent person. It's not right and then we wouldn't be any better than him. The previous time proved that to me."

Lyra grinded her teeth. William did not dare to look at her but looked at Serafina, who seemed to be on his side, eyes begging. He did not care about of any Stockholm syndrome if he only got mercy and thus survived this imprisonment with fewer injuries.  
"Well fine then," Lyra scoffed. She got up and walked towards the end of the cave. William sighed in relief and let his tense muscles slacken.  
"Thank your luck that Serafina feels mercifulness towards you for some reason." Lyra's voice was malevolent. Serafina walked to William and sat next to him. William looked at the girl, fearing what she would do to him. The black-haired girl's only motive to defend him from Lyra could very well be just that she would exclusively get to hurt him herself.  
"Don't take umbrage over Lyra's behavior. She hasn't been herself after Alex's hypnosis," Serafina said in a friendly manner. "She will recover, but the backwash of the hypnosis takes time to disappear."  
"Th-thanks," William managed to say quietly. He shook while saying that word. It was so wrong that he had to feel gratitude towards an enemy.

Serafina raised her hand. William squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away, and flinched upon feeling the hand's touch on his upper arm.  
"You're welcome," Serafina said, her voice quiet and soft. Her hand and especially fingers wandered smoothly on the areas which Lyra's arrow had threatened the most acutely. William opened his eyes and looked at the girl again carefully. Was she truly merciful towards him or was this a show again?

Admittedly her touch was pleasant. There seemed to be something soothing in the fingers softly stroking the areas which William had feared to start to hurt soon, as if wiping away the threat of pain. William breathed calmly, closing his eyes, and let the girl continue. He did not trust Serafina by any means, but he probably did not have any options regarding his actions either.

Serafina took her hand off William's forearm at some point. William opened his eyes upon feeling the hand slide away and met the friendly eyes. He felt serene; pain had not come and he did not feel that he was being threatened. He tried to sit up, observing Serafina's reaction. The girl gave him a bit of support as if to prove that she did not object his change of position. William backed away, back against the wall of the cave, and curled into a ball. It would not protect him much if one of the quartet that had captured him would decide to attack him, but he went to that position instinctively. In some way, it felt protected and thus good.

However, it did not keep Serafina from touching his arm. The touch was soft and seemed to feel out his reaction rather than him. William knew that while being this badly disadvantaged he could not protest much – he would only risk his own wellbeing if he rose to opposition – so he allowed Serafina to touch. As long as pain would not come, it should not be harmful or dangerous.  
"Just take it easy, William. Nothing bad will happen to you if you don't try to fight against us," Serafina said. William nodded briefly. There was no sense in trying to fight, that his reason said too; he would get trashed if he tried, he knew it. If merely Serafina and Alicia had gotten him jointly last time, his chances were virtually in the hole now that the duo had Dan and Lyra as help too.  
"Why me?" William asked.  
"What 'why me'?" Serafina asked, confused.  
"Why did you catch me? Again," William asked.  
"You were all by yourself and closest to the factory, so you were the fastest to get there and virtualized," Serafina noted. "Plus, Alex seems to have become fond of you and I want to see how far he's ready to go for you. Hardly far enough to risk his own life or if he really does go so far, then you'd better get worried.  
"Why? Because you'll start to aim at me?" William confronted. He tested the limits carefully. He was afraid and understood to be careful, but he did not want to surrender to his fear. If he could not fight, he could avoid giving in to fear. He would be rescued, he was sure of that. He would not be left behind; if he had not been during X.A.N.A.'s time either, when the group had had a reason and perhaps even the interest - he did not know of that but had suspected so after facing such cold treatment from his friends after being freed – to abandon him to the AI's clutches, he would not be abandoned now, when he was a part of the group, either.  
"No, just because in that case Alex has something in his mind for you," Serafina said, suddenly solemn. "And that something can't be anything good or beneficial to you in any way. Perhaps he seems harmless and even like a friend to you, but don't let it fool you."  
"Like you're fooling me and fooled Aelita by being supposedly friendly," William blurted.  
"Do I look like a cheater?" Serafina confronted. William pulled his legs closer to his body and did not answer, fearing he had gone too far.  
"Just say it," Serafina said more calmly. "I didn't consider hitting you just because you answered my question."  
"Well, now that I think about it... you don't look like a cheater," William answered, careful with his words. "But looks can be deceiving, like you warned about Alex.

Serafina smiled. "Well, it wasn't so hard. And you understood my point. Keep it in mind the next time Alex approaches you. And seriously, keep your eyes open near him even if you wouldn't believe me."  
"Okay," William said, doubtful. He did not want to doubt his friend anymore now that he was convinced that he was a friend and even called him a friend.

Serafina led the conversation away from Alex and kept some physical distance again. William did not look at Lyra who looked at the duo and especially him. The yellow-haired girl wanted to learn more about him to see what Serafina saw in him. Lyra saw only the power, but she knew that Serafina did not get interested by such alone. There was something else in William, something you could not see with a naked eye. That something was what Serafina had fixed her eyes on in William. _  
What are you hiding?_ That Lyra would have wanted to ask from William, Serafina in turn from Alex and William from Serafina. All three of them were afraid and worried but each of different reasons. What would become of this?

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	17. Part 16: Chains

Alex ran to the supercomputer as soon as the elevator's doors opened.  
"Oh no, you can't be serious!" he cried out, horrified, upon seeing a message on the screen.  
"Could you explain what this is about?" Yumi asked. Ulrich had called her and told her to come to the factory. Alex opened the message.  
"Serafina has gotten William. She must've used the attack for that and not getting me," he said.  
"What?!" Odd and Ulrich exclaimed.  
"No way!" Aelita gasped. They came to read the message by themselves as well. There was not anything new. Serafina and company had William and they wanted Alex dead.  
"What do we come up with this time?" Yumi asked. "We have to get William out of there."  
"True, he's there, on enemy territory, alone with four dangerous enemies. They can do anything to him, and I bet they'll do something bad to him now that they have gotten a taste of it," Alex said and chewed his nail. "Oh no, why did it have to go like this?"  
"Serafina was sneaky. She used the fact that we were scattered and assumed that the attack would be focused at Alex and no one else to her advantage," Jeremy said. "She has a sense of strategy."  
"Unfortunately," Yumi said.  
"We have to come up with something with which to free William fast and as safely as possible," Ulrich noted. "Jeremy, can you hack Serafina's base?"  
"I can, but first I need a connection to it," Jeremy said.  
"Well, we can contact them, try to talk William free," Aelita said. "You'll get the connection you need there, Jeremy."  
"Yeah," Jeremy said. "Shall we do it right away or wait?"  
"We have to act fast," Alex said, anxious. "The longer William is there, the longer he's in danger. We mustn't wait."

William remained curled up. The discussion with Serafina had ended and the girl had moved to the back of the cave to discuss with Lyra so quietly that William did not make the talk out. However, he could do nothing but observe the girls and Dan. Alicia was on the other side of the cave, watching the base at her familiar spot and hardly would suddenly assault him.  
"And the lights disappeared again," Alicia suddenly announced. Serafina raised her eyes to her companion and stood up to walk to the thorn bush.  
"So it seems," the girl scoffed. "We probably have to go and check out what they are after this case."  
"What lights are you talking about?" William asked. He remembered vaguely that Aelita may have mentioned something about some lights.  
"Some weird lights that don't belong among our pieces of work. They have been here as long as this version of the base has existed. We haven't dared to go investigate them yet since we don't know what they are and if they're dangerous," Serafina answered. "There's so much strange on Lyoko that it's not worth it to take many risks. You can get killed."  
"Or something worse," Lyra hissed with a malevolent tone. William winced; the backwash of the hypnosis or not, that girl seemed to hate him more than anything.  
"Indeed, something worse could happen too," Serafina said neutrally. "You both know quite enough about that."

William looked at his knees. The reminder of the Xanafication hurt.

A beep from the crystal ball startled them. Serafina stepped to the ball and opened the interface.  
"Look at that, the folk wants to discuss," she said. Lyra stood up and came closer with Dan.  
"Will we accept the connection?" she asked.  
"Let's do that. Let's see what they have to say," Serafina said. "This'll be interesting."

A window opened. The Lyoko Warriors were in the same frame.  
"Free William now or else things will go badly for you," Alex threatened, eyes wide. Serafina's interested expression collapsed into a fed up one.  
"Not convincing at all," she said indifferently. "Hey, we did put effort into getting William here. We're not freeing him for free."  
"Well, what will you free him in exchange for?" Jeremy asked, seemingly calm.  
"What I would've traded him for before if you had complied," Serafina noted. "Alex's life. I kind of think that you're starting to run out of options."  
"You can't keep him there forever," Yumi stated.  
"Can't we?" Lyra asked, raising her eyebrows. "William did fare well against us three here with his weapons and all."

They saw the shock on the Lyoko Warriors' faces.  
"Can we see him? And talk with him?" Aelita asked carefully.  
"Sure," Serafina replied. She gestured at William who stood up carefully and walked closer to the crystal ball, watching out for the girl duo.  
"Are you ok, William?" Aelita asked, worried.  
"Yeah, I am," William answered. Serafina turned her back on him and walked to the thorn bush again, saying, "Just sit down on the chair if you plan to discuss."  
"Yeah. If you're not considering yielding on our demand, this might be the last time in a while that you see each other, let alone talk," Lyra stated. She marched towards the back of the cave. "Talk as long as you just want because you might not even get another chance."  
"How have you fared there?" Yumi asked, concern on her face. "You don't seem to be completely OK. You seem a bit pallid."  
"I'm not in any danger. I'm just still in a bit of a shock, I was chased from the base's forest here. It... wasn't a pleasant experience in any way. I'm very badly disadvantaged," William told. Somehow telling about the case and looking into Yumi's eyes made him feel more at ease. Suddenly, it was easier for him to talk when the pressure of the events unraveled. The next words no longer felt so oppressive, merely reasonable. "I have no chances to escape from here alone without Super Smoke. I seriously need your help."  
"Don't worry, we'll get you out of there," Jeremy noted.  
"Yeah, Odd the Great will come and save you!" Odd tried to lighten the mood. William gave a laugh. He trusted his friends' help completely, and Odd's joke got a smile on his lips.

The anxiety unraveled almost unnoticeably. Suddenly it was so much easier to be there. He had nothing to be afraid of. He would survive, would survive for sure. He would not do it alone, but he was not alone, he knew it, had known for long already. He had been saved from X.A.N.A., even though he had become its prisoner just of his own stupidity, and he would be rescued this time too, when the fault was not his. He had done all he could. And this time he would not be helpless when the help would arrive. He would not have to be carried but he could walk away with his own strength. He would get through this, that his optimism said.

Then he noticed Alex waving at him. When William gave him his attention, Alex first put a finger on his lips and then gestured that the conversation had to go on.  
"Is everything OK there? I mean aside from me being gone?" William asked.  
"Yes, at least for now. The day hasn't changed yet, so no one has noticed that you're gone yet. We have to come up with something so that people won't start to wonder too much," Ulrich explained. "Don't worry, we'll get through this."  
"If possible, then please don't create that clone," William asked. "I don't want to listen to the heckling again."

Alex held out a paper that said, _Attack._ William shook his head slightly.  
"Don't fret, you're with us now. If the situation really goes so bad, we'll support you," Yumi promised.  
"And maybe we'll look after the clone more so that it won't act stupid too much," Odd noted. Alex jerked the paper.  
"Good, because there's no sense or point in me being alone against everyone. It wasn't nice," William tried to desperately hint that him attacking would not pay off. Alex shook the paper more desperately. Then he took it away from the view and wrote more without noticing that the others looked at him, uncertain and doubtful.  
"Yeah, we know," Yumi said. "This time things will go differently."  
"Thank you," William said, feeling genuine gratitude. Alex showed the paper again. This time, it also said, _Finish them off, you have a chance._ William shook his head, concealing it in stretching. He saw the quiver lying on the table and Serafina with her back towards him, closer than before.  
"This there something else we should talk about here?" Ulrich asked.  
"Yumi, could you possibly keep a list of the homework that we get?" William asked.  
"Sure, I can do that. And you won't be gone for so long that you'd fall behind badly either," Yumi answered.  
"Thanks!" William thanked, glad. Alex shook the paper, nervous, and Jeremy looked at the black-haired boy next to him, confused. What was the hurry he was in? The others kept glancing at Alex too. This would only make William's situation worse.  
"Attack now," Alex formed the words on his lips. William glanced at an arrow on the table from the corner of his eye.  
"What kind of views are there?" Odd asked. "I didn't get to see them well when we attacked the first time."

William moved aside a bit.  
"Well, see for yourself," he said, glancing around himself. Lyra, Dan and Alicia were quite far away from him and Serafina. He would have the time to strike Serafina, who was now pacing back and forth. Things might end up badly for him, but if that would end the fight, it would be worth it.  
"What a cool place! You know how to decorate!" Odd noted, grinning.  
"Thank you," Serafina said, surprised. Then she turned her back on William again.

William looked Alex in the eye. He nodded and formed the words on his lips, "Do it."

William snatched the arrow from the table and dashed towards Serafina at full speed. He crashed into the girl, knocking her to the ground and raised the arrow for the ending strike. He did not have the time to do it when a tiger tackled him off her partner, roaring, and pushed him to the ground once the rolling ended. William cried out in pain both when his body took in the crashes and when Alicia's claws scraped wounds into his shoulder. For a while, he did not see anything clearly either out of dizziness or pain.  
"Serafina!" Lyra cried out and ran to her comrade.  
"If you do that one more time, you'll lose more than just a shoulder" Alicia growled and pressed her claws through the suit into William's yet intact shoulder. William cried out in pain, so Alicia moved her claws away. They had merely broken the skin, but it still hurt.  
"WILLIAM!" The Lyoko Warriors cried out in horror upon hearing their friend's shout. Ulrich also shouted, "Alex, what did you do?!"  
"Serafina, are you OK?" Lyra asked while helping Serafina up.  
"It's OK, air got knocked out of me and I got slammed a bit, but nothing more serious," Serafina told, holding her side which had perhaps taken the worst hit. She straightened herself and looked at William. "Alicia, don't hurt him anymore. I think he already understood that he made a mistake."  
"Why leave it there? He was about to kill you!" Lyra exclaimed.  
"I've observed William so much that I know that he's got enough sense in his head that he won't go against us four alone and unarmed," Serafina said, walking towards the crystal ball. She leant to the screen, angry. "Unlike a certain Alex, who most likely pushed him to the previous, pointless act. Are you satisfied, jerk? William got hurt."

Alex did not answer at all.  
"I did think that you are not capable of being his friend. Don't act like you are," Serafina noted and turned to Lyra. "We can't leave this here. Something has to be done to William if he yielded to Alex's pushing once. She noticed that William was wailing out of pain upon going silent for a moment.  
"Well, what do we do?" Lyra asked. Serafina pressed something on the interface and the Lyoko Warriors heard metallic jingle.  
"I guess that should work," Serafina noted.  
"Not exactly what I'd hoped," Lyra noted, disappointed. "But you're the boss here. Let's get to work."

The Lyoko Warriors heard the jingle of metal but did not know what it was about. Everything happened outside of their view.  
"No, don't, I won't do anything to you anymore," William begged, blinded by pain. Suddenly, he distinguished what Lyra had in her hands but did not know for what purpose. He could not imagine what would be done to him now. "Don't..."  
"This is just for the best of everyone. Don't struggle and this won't hurt," Serafina said. She took the other end of the chains from Lyra and started to wrap the chain around William's body. Alicia lifted William up from his back with her paws and in the fear of additional pain William sat up. That gave Serafina and Lyra better chances at wrapping the chains around him, which most certainly had been Alicia's intent too.

William tried to take the pain that pulsated from the wounds on his shoulders. Even though the chains did not hurt, they were tight. Serafina watched out for the wounds but did not, however, hesitate to use the chains and fasten them around her hostage. Still she somehow could avoid causing pain.  
"Get up. Let's show Alex what he accomplished," Serafina said. William tried to stand up but without his hands he could not get a balance good enough for getting up; his arms were chained too tightly to his sides to be of use. The girls helped him get up and then pushed him to move.

William walked to the crystal ball, looking at his friends in desperation. His paled face, chained body and bleeding wounds under the torn Lyoko suit shook the Lyoko Warriors on the other side of the screen. They all wanted to blame Alex for what had happened, but none managed to get even a word out of their mouth.  
"This is what happens when you dance to Alex's tune," Serafina stated coldly. "Learn from this." She ended the conversation to those words and closed the connection.

Jeremy took his glasses and wiped them to the hem of his shirt since he could not come up with anything else to do. William's gaze had drilled into his retinas even though he had not looked straight at him. Something had happened for real now. This was severe. Very severe.  
"Alex, what in Lyoko's name did you cause?" Ulrich managed to say. Sometime long ago, before William had joined the group during X.A.N.A.'s days, he might have felt schadenfreude if something bad had happened to William, but if this had happened back then, he would not have felt schadenfreude towards anyone even on his worst days.  
"I... I thought... I thought that..." Alex sputtered, shaken.  
"You thought," Odd stated coldly. "We all thought that the attack would aim at you. William was imprisoned. You thought that William would succeed now. He got hurt really bad."  
"It wasn't supposed to go like this," Alex said.  
"But it did," Jeremy said with a bleak voice. "Now William is trapped even worse. And I lost the connection before I managed to finish the hacking. At this rate, there won't be a next time."

Serafina pushed William against the wall carefully.  
"Sit," she prompted. William let his body slide to the floor along the wall. Serafina and Alicia sat next to him while Lyra tramped to Dan, grumbling something about pointless mercy. William pulled his legs closer to his body to somehow get some defense from his captors even on a mental level.  
"William..." Aelita breathed. "What will happen to him now?"  
"We have to free him and fast and get him to safety. This is going too far already," Yumi said. None of them should have to undergo something like this.

In addition to that, they all now knew that in the end Alex was ready to risk them to kill Serafina. They could not trust him anymore.

Never again.

 ** **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/****


	18. Part 17: Pain

"Why did you even attack?" Serafina asked. "Because Alex told you to?"  
"I had a chance," William stated. "I could've succeeded."  
"And if you had succeeded, Lyra would've killed you," Serafina remarked. "And what for?"

William did not answer in protest. He could not afford backtalking, but he could say nothing.  
"Don't answer then," Serafina sighed.

A growl coming from Alicia's throat drew William's attention. He noticed that the albino tiger had pinned her eyes on his wounds. Did she fancy tearing them open more? Alicia turned to look at Serafina, who nodded to her. It was a permission for something. William tensed his muscles, waiting for what would happen now. He feared that the tiger would now raise its paw for the next strike.

Instead of hitting, Alicia got up on her feet and ran out of the cave. William breathed in relief. Alicia's stare had made him feel threatened.  
"How bad do your wounds hurt?" Serafina asked with a soft and quiet voice.  
"Why do you ask?" William asked, dubious.  
"Just out of empathy," Serafina answered. Her friendly gaze tried to melt William's suspicion, or so the boy at least felt like. William decided that he would not let the girl gain his trust.

On the other hand, he could try his luck with her friendliness.  
"It hurts somewhat," William told as calmly as possible. The chains pressed unpleasantly but he did not let them disturb him. At least they prevented him from jabbing his wounds.

Serafina set her hand on his shoulder carefully to be able to move the torn suit out of the way. William tensed his shoulders immediately upon feeling the touch even though it did not hurt yet. He felt that the hand was close to the wounds. He also knew that his neck was bare and open to whatever Serafina would do. Despite of the chains, he managed to raise his shoulders quite close to his ears, covering the neck.

However, that movement brought his face in contact with Serafina's hand. He noticed right away how the hand rose from his shoulder and stroked his cheek with the back of the index finger. William let his shoulders down and tried to move his head away, but even turning the face did not stop Serafina from invading his personal space. The black-haired girl could do just about anything to him and William would be unable to resist virtually by any means. He had been chained so well and tightly that he had no chances at resisting anyone who wanted to do something to him.

William still looked away. The thorn bush fence was low but he knew that he could not get even that far by any means even if he managed to get up. If Serafina would not stop him, Lyra and Dan would have enough time to react to him in time.

William waited, but Serafina just started to stroke his cheek with the backs of all her fingers. She did not make a single move to turn his head back. Perhaps Serafina waited that he would do it himself. From the corner of his eye William saw a friendly expression, so he decided to see what would happen when he would turn his head back.

Serafina's expression did not even twitch. However, she took her hand off, whereupon William sighed in relief. This was a good change.

The soft sound of paws awakened William from his thoughts to look at the thorn bush fence again. Alicia returned with something dark green in her mouth and the thorn bush grew back behind her. Alicia stopped at the spot she had left from and gave Serafina what she had in her mouth.  
"Thanks, Alicia," Serafina thanked. William looked at the ball, which Serafina divided into two parts, questioningly. Upon noticing the expression the girl explained, "Your wounds need to be covered with something so that the bleeding dries up better and no dirt will get to them."  
"Okay," William said. "Are you sure that that helps?"  
"That moss is thick and dense. It'll obstruct the bleeding well," Alicia told. "And I cleaned that with water so there's no dirt in it."  
"Good," William said. Serafina lay her hand on his shoulder again and this time inspected the puncture wounds which Alicia's claws had struck closely. The edges of William's suit's tears had sunk into the wounds.  
"I need to pick your suit off these wounds or this won't work," Serafina told.  
"Do it then," William said. He did not know why he could say it so steadily. He did not trust his captor even an iota but on the other hand he was not actually afraid either. Perhaps he had just already gotten used to the pain of those wounds which was not as bad as what he might be inflicted on especially now that he was completely helpless. Yet Serafina did not seem revengeful despite of the killing attempt so she would most likely strive not to hurt him at least terribly much.

Serafina grabbed the fabric between the two midmost wounds and snatched the suit off the wounds. William cried out as the sudden sharp pain struck. He had known that it would hurt but nonetheless he had not known to expect such a pain. Serafina looked at the wounds more closely now.  
"It's for the best to clean these wounds of yours first," she said and stood up. She walked to the crystal ball and typed something on its interface.

At that very moment a small, white bowl was materialized on the table. Serafina took it and returned to William and Alicia. Now William saw the contents of the bowl: clear water and a small cloth.  
"I'll try to be careful but most likely this will hurt when I clean the edges," Serafina explained calmly.  
"Okay," William replied just as calmly.

Serafina took the cloth and pressed it close to the outermost wound carefully, wiping the dryish blood away. William closed his eyes and let it happen. There was nothing else he could do.

William followed Serafina's slow and meticulous progression, relying on his sense of touch. He did not want to disrupt it in any way especially when even the smallest slip could jab the wound. William knew from experience how painful an inflamed wound could be and he would not willingly repeat that experience now, either, when he wanted to be in the best shape to be able to fight – when he would be able to fight again.

After cleaning the last puncture wound Serafina pressed a cold wad of moss on the wounds and let the suit keep it there. Cold water ran from the moss and William could not help reacting to it.  
"Yeah, the water that I cleaned the moss with was pretty cold. Sorry about that," Alicia apologized from the thorn bush fence; she had turned into a hawk and moved to her usual spot as Serafina did not need help with the wounds.

Serafina cleaned the cloth in the water and stepped over William's legs with the bowl to the other side of the boy, where longer wounds, which had come from Alicia lunging at William, awaited. Luckily, they were not deep either, so Serafina could just clean them and put moss over them as well.  
"Thank you," William thanked. The cold moss numbed his shoulders and thus eased the pain.  
"Don't mention it," Serafina said. She hugged William gently all of a sudden and whispered to his ear, "Sorry."

Then she let go, stood up and moved to do something with the crystal ball. William looked at the girl in astonishment but did not manage to ask what she apologized for. In addition to that, he did not feel any sudden pain in his body, so most likely Serafina had not stung him with anything either. Alicia had, as usual, her back towards the cave, so nothing could be interpreted from her either. When William turned to look at Lyra and Dan, he saw the other girl's dropped jaw and astonished expression. Lyra looked at Serafina, but Dan met William's gaze. One could not tell from what the wolf was feeling, so William turned his head forward and just was. He just was and let his wounds heal slowly.

Hours elapsed and it eventually started to feel in William. Being in the same position started to become strenuous even though William did not know why. He tried to change his position a little, but the motion merely made the chains slumped and tighten straight on the wounds. The moss pressed into at least one of the wounds and messages about pain started to come to the brains at a harsh rate. William bit his teeth together while trying to make the chains move away, but it was no use. It merely made it worse and chafed the moss against the wounds. Soon, the movement coming from mere breathing hurt as the chains yielded a little.

Serafina reacted to how William's breathing turned uneven. Worried, she turned on her chair to look at the boy, who desperately tried to tolerate the pain, and moved to him upon noticing the strained expression indicating pain.  
"Do the wounds hurt?" Serafina asked. William nodded. He tried to keep his breathing as shallow as possible to prevent his chest from moving much under the chains, but it started to tire him and make him dizzy.  
"Do the chains press the wounds?" Serafina asked. William nodded again. Serafina grabbed the chains at the direct vicinity of the wounds and pulled them looser. The layers below tightened but the pain in the shoulders eased quickly. William emptied his lungs in relief.  
"Thank you," he said once again. It was all so wrong that he had a reason to thank his enemy who held him hostage. This time, Serafina did not reply but tried to crack the moss. William hissed briefly out of pain.  
"It doesn't seem anything's coming out of this with these arrangements," Serafina noted. "The moss has pressed itself into the wounds. Now it's making things worse when it's supposed to help."  
"Great," William grunted from between his teeth. He cried out when Serafina plucked the moss off suddenly. The moss got off the other shoulder less painfully.  
"Serafina, what're you planning?" Lyra asked, coming closer to the duo.  
"I'll change this situation," Serafina noted, checking the wounds for loose moss. "Moss doesn't seem to be a very practical idea under these circumstances."  
"Why don't you use real first aid supplies like gauze on my wounds?" William asked, irritated by the fact that his wounds were not left alone. He was not sure if one wound was bleeding again.  
"I don't think it's any more practical with that suit of yours. At least unless you want that the shoulders of your suit are torn open even worse. It'd look even uglier than now," Serafina remarked.

Lyra wanted to ask since when Serafina had been aware of style, but she decided not to challenge her right now. She had noticed that William was irritated, so it was better not to make his mood worse. The boy could become insufferable otherwise. The question could be saved for later.

William scoffed. Had his arms been free, he would have definitely crossed them now, but they were not free, so they just were where they had been chained to. Now, it started to anger him rather than frighten.

Serafina went to the crystal ball and typed something again. Lyra went to look next to her. William saw her eyes widen from the side.  
"Are you seriously going to...?" the girl asked.  
"Gimme a better idea if you're against it," Serafina noted serenely.  
"Just ignore it," Lyra suggested. Serafina turned her head to look at her friend in the eyes with an annoyed expression. "Well fine then. Do whatever you want. It'll be your own problem then."

With those words, Lyra turned and went back to Dan, but Serafina pressed the final button before the girl got there. Pain burst in William's wounds and the boy's scream startled Lyra, who started and turned to look at what happened, her heart pounding. Serafina's expression was steady but her eyes gave away the girl's regret. Lyra looked at William, who still screamed. She had wanted to hurt that Lyoko Warrior, but now when he screamed in the agony she had wanted to cause, she disagreed. Despite of her anger, she did not have the heart for such.

Serafina was right; William was too much of an outsider, too little corrupted by the war to be harmed as a comrade of Alex's – too innocent, as Serafina has expressed the fact.

William fell silent as the pain ended and was left gasping for breath. Serafina knelt next to him and inspected the wounds. They had closed up into white strokes on the pale skin. William jumped upon feeling the girl's fingers on his bare skin as they felt the newly formed scars.  
"It seems to be better now," Serafina said with a forced smile on her face. She tightened the chains to their place and returned to do something at the crystal ball. Suddenly, the tears in William's suit got repaired.

Lyra looked at the events, aghast, and turned, returning to Dan. This was now completely on Serafina's responsibility. An innocent prisoner or not, she would not take part in this mess.

William did not feel like thanking anymore. The suit was the least of his worries even though he would have been irritated if the tears had remained. Now he was just trapped and completely at the mercy of his enemies. Serafina returned to him once more to check that everything was fine and that he was not feeling bad. After that, the girl went back to the crystal ball again and stayed there to work.

 **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/**


	19. Part 18: Wounded

William tried to breathe but chains constricted him. He could not breathe nor move. He had been crushed. The arms were locked to his sides with tight chains and he could not get up. It was dark. Everything around him was just black. And then there was the window which showed something else.

William could not breathe no matter how much he tried. All movement was impossible. William could see the Scyphozoa leave and Yumi appear, horrified. William's view of the window approached her at running speed even though William did not feel that he was running. The sword flashed in Sector Five's light and cleaved Yumi, who shrieked, unable to attack against him. The view kept on moving and William could hear laughter even though he felt like he was separate from his body, chained to the spot.  
 _Ulrich!_ William wanted to shout at the samurai for help, but he still could not breathe, let alone speak or shout! The sword swung, launching a shockwave which passed through Ulrich's swords easily. William heard his own voice laughing with schadenfreude at the Lyoko Warrior flying far away, yet it still was not his voice. There was something wrong in it, something truly wrong.

The view moved towards Ulrich. The giant sword rose and pierced the half-dizzy Lyoko Warrior lying on the ground while the laughter blared. Desperately, William tried to break free but nothing worked. His legs touched the border of his dark space without extending in their full length. He was trapped in some cramped place and it just distressed him even more even though he did not have claustrophobia. He was trapped and could not do anything to stop the view. He could not even turn away, look away and hope that he would not hear much.

Aelita and Odd shouted Ulrich's name and the view turned to look at them. Then it ran towards the duo, deflected the laser arrows and dodged the energy fields. William wanted to pray the being controlling his body to spare even them but he could not breathe. He could not talk without getting his breathing going.

The sword pierced Odd. Aelita backed away and then turned to run away. William tried to shout, ask for mercy, but he could not get anything but a pathetic sound out. His lungs emptied from the little oxygen he had desperately gotten inside himself from that. The view ran after the girl, the laughter now even more malicious. William could hear Aelita's cries for help which were directed at Jeremy as the frightened pink-haired girl tried to escape her enemy.  
"William, wake up! Wake up!" A more unfamiliar distressed girl's voice invaded his consciousness. William tried to see where it came from. "Wake up!"

William felt shaking in his body. All of a sudden, his eyes flew open and he gasped for breath get oxygen. He managed to breathe but he had shortness of breath. He was on his side and chained tightly. His legs met the rock wall. The feeling of a cramped space did not change when he could not extend his legs.  
"William, calm down! Calm down! What's wrong with you?" William now recognized the girl to be Serafina. He turned his head to look at the girl with blurry eyes and still tried to get free from his chains. The inability to move distressed him fiercely now that all the memories of being under X.A.N.A.'s control came flooding in. He had been chained to where he was just as much, completely unable to do anything. He had only been able to look at the incidences. He had been unable to do anything to stop the incidences. He had been unable to even breathe or beg for mercy, even though as his imprisonment had prolonged he had wanted to do so. Had he been able to, at some point he would have started begging for mercy when it felt too hard to watch time after time when he dealt with his friends.

Serafina saw the anxiety in the boy's eyes. Something was wrong for real.

"What's wrong with you?" she repeated.

"I... Let me go... Let me go, really, please," William whimpered. He heard grumbling from somewhere afar, "Seriously, you can't stand even listening to that."

"Alright, I'll take the chains off," Serafina complied. She lifted William to a sitting position and tried to unwrap the chains. "William, stay still, I can't get this off otherwise."

William forced himself to be still.  
"Hurry," he managed to say even though he felt that his voice was just a squeak.  
"Lyra, come help fast," Serafina ordered with a sharp voice.

Lyra stood up abruptly upon feeling the power of the authority Serafina rarely used before she even was aware of it. She hurried to William and grabbed the other end of the chains. Jointly the girls got the chains loosened and untied fast. William could breathe at the normal rate again, and he curled into fetal position quickly, steadying his breathing. He did not want to face his memories but they swarmed like an army which wanted to stomp him crushed into the earth.  
"What on earth just happened?" Lyra asked, numb. She had seen the anxiety in the boy's eyes and she did not have the faintest idea of what could have triggered it all of a sudden. The irritation and the belief that boy was just acting frightened were now gone; the current anxiety was fully genuine and extremely deep.  
"I don't know," Serafina said, worried. William's sudden and intense anxiety attack had startled her. She moved closer to William.  
"William, what happened?" she asked softly and lay her other hand on the boy's upper arm cautiously. William trembled, uttered something and turned his head away from the girl. Serafina stroked the upper arm most carefully, hoping that it would soothe William.  
"Just take it easy. Breathe," she said just as softly.

William breathed, trembling. He was slowly starting to understand that he had seen a nightmare, yet it did not prevent the anxiety brought by the memories and feelings. At some point he turned his head to glance at the hand moving on his upper arm and its owner. There was a concerned look on Serafina's face.  
"What happened?" Serafina asked again.  
"X-X.A.N.A... It got me," William explained, his voice shaking. "I wiped everyone out and X.A.N.A... X.A.N.A. just laughed. It laughed like it laughed when it kept me prisoner in my own body."

Understanding appeared on Serafina's face right away. William had seen a nightmare that stemmed from the boy's experiences of Xanafication. It appeared that he remembered more of those events than Serafina had presumed.  
"William, listen to me closely now, okay?" she said, gripping William's shoulders strongly.  
"O-okay," William replied, uncertain. He did not know why Serafina invaded his personal space all of a sudden this forcefully. Perhaps the girl strove to get his undivided attention and get her message to its destination so that it could not be ignored by any means.  
"X.A.N.A. is gone," Serafina said, her words clear and slow, looking William straight in the eyes. "It's gone forever. It can't do anything to you ever again. It can't hurt you anymore. The only one who can harm you anymore is the Scyphozoa, but it alone can't imprison you. It needs a master and the master is forever gone. The same experience can never repeat itself. Did you understand?"  
"I-I did," William answered. Serafina's unwavering certainty gave him certainty as well. "X.A.N.A. can never imprison me again. It can't hurt me."  
"Exactly," Serafina said steadily. Her grip turned gentler and started to withdraw.  
"But nightmares don't still go away," William admitted. It was surprisingly easy to grab onto Serafina's certainty and suddenly he noticed he was venting to the girl. It was easy to talk to her as she looked him straight in the eyes and touched him gently. "The nightmares just repeat themselves and I can't do anything to them. They bring the same horror back to my mind no matter how much I try to get over them."

The words had pushed out with force, and William tried to steady his breathing, closing his eyes. He tried to shut everything else out and just steady his breathing, drive the anxiety away. He shook; the horrors of the nightmare were real. They had happened, perhaps not the way they had in the nightmares, but they had still happened. He had fought against his friends, unable to to do anything to resist X.A.N.A. and its dominance on him himself. He had been completely helpless, completely inoperable and still completely conscious, completely aware about what was happening and what he was causing. What he had caused all just because he had not obeyed Jeremy when he had been on Lyoko for the first time.

The feelings of the nightmare seemed to have stuck to him strongly now that he was on Lyoko. The weight of his wrist armor against his arm and wrist as well as the skintight suit become familiar made them seem even more lively since his subconscious, twisted by Xanafication, knew exactly what the suit felt on him.

Once, nightmares had been rare for William and he had not cared or gotten worried about them since he had been a small child, but Xanafication had made them common and dreadful. William knew that a part of the dreadfulness was caused by him knowing that they were realistic and him experiencing them himself. When he started to understand where he was, he understood that the physical shackles had just strengthened the nightmare.

However, understanding did not make the anxiety any lighter and lesser.

Arms wrapped themselves around William and pulled him against someone's body carefully. William cried out and opened his eyes. He saw Serafina's worried face up close. The concern made the sky-blue eyes glitter even though the moonshine came from behind the girl's back and cast shadows on her face. William could make out his blurry reflection from those eyes, but seeing his own, anxious expression did not make him feel any easier at all.

Serafina wrapped her arms around William with even more force. William tried to break away, terrified; what did the girl want from him now? Did she want to imprison him again now that he was not resisting?  
"Calm down, William. I'm not going to harm you. I'll just hold you here," Serafina said softly. Her voice sounded calming, but William did not dare to trust it. He did not want to end up into a trap. He just wanted to break free, run away from his captor – and his nightmares. He wanted to escape the grips he had ended up into: the nightmares' grip on his mind and Serafina's grip on his body. William was unable to fight, so his brains demanded him to escape, but as Serafina reacted to his escape attempts by keeping him close, escaping did not succeed either.

Suddenly Serafina pressed him against herself strongly, stopping the last of escape attempts. William could not move anything but his legs and head, and they were of no use.  
"Calm down now, will you?" Serafina asked with a calm voice. "I'll hold you here, William. You won't be hurt and I won't do anything bad to you, okay? Just calm down and be there."

William sighed. Once again, he had no other choice. He relaxed his body and leaned on Serafina. The grip loosened notably and seemed to adapt to his position more now. The other hand started to stroke his back. William tried to say something against it, but Serafina interrupted him with soft words upon feeling his muscles tense, "Just be there, at peace. Tell if something hurts or feels bad."  
"Okay," William breathed and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the girl's shoulder. Serafina's voice seemed to strip him of all resistance. It just sounded so soothing when the girl spoke to him softly. And admittedly how the girl addressed him by his name multiple times made him feel better. He felt that he was not just some random person to Serafina, but one specific person whom she now concentrated on completely. In some way it felt like he mattered to Serafina as the girl tried to calm him and that she was not doing it merely for no reason.

Serafina's body was warm and it was easy to lean against it. The arms did not squeeze him but adapted to his body and movements and held onto him gently and without hurting. William felt that he could lay the weight pressing him upon that grip and trust that the girl would support him.

The stroking hand rose from the back and William opened his eyes to see where it was going. He did not have the time to see it when he already felt the hand on the back of his head. He trembled and let out a sound, startled, upon feeling its touch.  
"It's okay," Serafina said softly. William lifted his head from her shoulder to look the girl in the eyes. What did she plan to do to him now?  
"You have nothing to worry about here, William," Serafina soothed. She started to stroke the boy's head with care, observing how William reacted to it. The anxiety was not gone yet even though she saw and felt that William had calmed down at least a bit already. She could easily make the boy fear just more and more when she intended to appease him gently.

William shivered. The touch on the back of his head sent shivers along his neck down to his back and shoulders; he did not remember anyone touching him like this. He realized that even though he was no longer chained, Serafina still did what she wanted to him. Now he just did not resist even though in theory he could have.

On the other hand, what Serafina did to him now felt good. The girl held him without forcing him into any position but adapted herself and stroked him gently. The fingers did not cling to his hair a single time or if they did, Serafina corrected the situation so that William did not even know about it. In practice, he did not have a reason or need to resist.

William lay his head back on Serafina's shoulder carefully and closed his eyes again, trusting the touch.  
"There. It's okay," Serafina whispered and pressed her cheek against the boy's crown lightly. "You're safe right here."

William nodded, calm. The gentle treatment drove the anxiety away and he felt that he could breathe freely again. The horrors of the nightmares turned into obscure mashes of color somewhere far in the horizon, somewhere where Serafina would not let him fall from her grip. The arms kept him in contact with the warm body. William felt safe in that grip. He would not be hurt. He would not be hurt nor would the nightmares be able to do anything bad to him.

He did not even notice falling asleep in the arms of the enemy.

 **/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/**


End file.
